


Salvation

by LinearA



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Desertrose endgame, F/F, F/M, Girls with wrenches, Jealousy, Jedi Mistress Rey, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Masturbation, Rose is the galaxy's AOC only more so, Senator Tico, Sharing a Bed, Tragic Kylo Ren, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-09-25 00:01:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17110607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinearA/pseuds/LinearA
Summary: Rose doesn't know how she expected to spend her evenings as a senator of the Federated Republics.  Reading bill proposals, maybe, or attending glamorous and intimidating diplomatic parties.Not listening at the door as her Jedi bodyguard has sex with the only recipient of amnesty to try to kill himself with a Force-choke.And not wishing she could change places with him.





	1. Inauguration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey’s voice is quiet. “Would you like to give them a show, Senator?”
> 
> The mischief in Rey’s voice makes her want to smile, but the title reminds her to lift her own head, and look cooly at the other legislators and their entourages as they try not to gawk. She is Senator Tico, Primary Representative of the Outer Rim (12.5 trillion votes); she represents more than 600 worlds; she’s come here to make sure they receive justice, and Rey is standing by her side to keep her safe. No one can touch her.

Rose has never worn the traditional costume of the Otomok System. It wasn't practical for children, it wasn't practical in the mines, and it wasn't practical as a mechanic for the Resistance.

It's essentially not practical at all, she reflects, as she adjusts the shoulder-drape for the fourth time in an hour.

“Rey,” she asks, “how much effort would it take you to use the Force to keep this from falling down my arm?”

“Effort? None.” The drapery whispers up her arm. If Rey even moved a finger, Rose didn't see it. “Attention, is the problem, when I'm supposed to be keeping an eye out. I've got a spare hairpin, though; we can use it keep the pleats together.”

Rey's tongue is sticking out of the side of her mouth as she gathers the layers of fabric together in the narrow hairpin. “I know I have to wear this to the inauguration, Threepio,” Rose says, “but I can come to regular sessions in a jumpsuit, right?”

“That would be _most_ improper, Senator Tico!” the droid exclaims, blinking. “Respect for the dignity of galactic governance should be displayed through dress whenever the senatorial body meets.” Rey gives him a look. “However, there should be... appropriate wardrobe items requiring less effort.”

“Fine,” Rose says. “If I have to wear dresses, I'll wear dresses. Just so long as this is the only time I have to show my Haysian pride by wrapping myself up in twenty-two meters of Islomat optic gauze.”

“Threepio ordered all kinds of clothes for you,” Rey assures her. “And it's not twenty-two meters; it's only eight. And you look gorgeous.”

“Do I?” asks Rose dubiously. To her own eyes, she looks like a flip-haired mess who can't wear her own native dress without help. Rey, in her loose-sleeved jacket, carefully tied belt, and wide, pleated trousers, looks much more elegant than she does.

“Look at you,” Rey orders, pointing to the viewport. Rose is already looking, of course, but she focuses harder with Rey's imperious gesture. “You look like a mirage.”

“Heat haze?” Rose has seen that, around the fuel cells of fighters as they land. There are worse things to look like than that shimmer. And she supposes that the fabric, slippery, semi-transparent and loosely woven with tiny, irregular metallic threads, might have a bit of that look.

“On Jakku, the heat makes the sand reflect the sky.” Rey's voice always becomes unsolvably complex when she talks about the place she grew up. Rose can detect bitterness, and some nostalgia, but there are other things there, that she can't name and is afraid to ask after. Jakku has sent no representative to the Assembly of the Western Reaches, and cast a total of 22 individual votes in the Senatorial Election. All of them for someone Rey said was a petty boss who gave food for flattery. Her voice, conveying that information, had been oddly thin, as it is now. “So in the desert, mirages look like water.”

Rose's gauze is red, fading to white as the drape comes down over her shoulder to brush the floor. She sees no resemblance to water. But Rey is turning, now, as Finn and his own bodyguard come in.

“You two look very nice,” Rey says, cheerfully. It's half true. Finn does look very nice, in his fine blue shirt and his long dove-grey coat with a line of blue-and-silver embroidery down the placquet.

His bodyguard, however, looks like he forgot to wash, forgot to shave, forgot to comb his hair, forgot to sleep for several days running. His clothes, darker and shabbier cousins of what Rey’s wearing, flatter his frame but not his pale complexion, and make the long red scar down his face look even redder. The look he gives Rey seems to say he takes the false compliment as deliberately cruel mockery. Though he must know her better than that.

Finn whistles at Rose. “Is everyone else going to be showing that much skin? Should I lose a few layers?”

Rose doesn't know what makes her feel worse, Finn's teasing, or Rey hissing, _“Finn! Don't tease her!”_ as if everyone in the room can't hear her.

C-3PO protests, “Senator Dameron! Senator Tico is wearing full and correct formal dress!”

“Sorry, Rose,” Finn says. “I haven't been to your home world; I don't know what people wear.”

Rose doesn't say anything, because of course nobody wears this on Hays Minor. If she stepped onto the surface in this costume, it would be ruined in seconds, dirtied with smoke and smeared with black ash.  
But that's why she's here. And Finn understands that. Which is why they both need the best bodyguards in the galaxy. Bodyguards who between them can, and have, put armies to flight.

Rose is glad Rey is hers, though.

Their shuttle glides into the hangar and docks so smoothly that Rose is more inclined to credit Rey's powers than the pilot's skill. (It doesn’t even occur to Rose until much later that anyone else on the ship might want to use the Force to give them a soft landing.) The Senate House was once a dreadnought vessel of the First Order, now half-gutted and remade as a center of government tied to no system, able to visit any world, and, hopefully, capable of fleeing from any attacks, as the previous galactic seat of government had not been.

Not that there's supposed to be anybody left with the resources to attack them that way. The First Order under Supreme Leader Kylo Ren had become disorderly – broken and scattered into pieces the rising coalition of rebellious systems were able to smash. With some help, of course, from Supreme Leader Kylo Ren.

After his mother died.

After Rey dragged him to their base, wild-eyed and shivering in the heat, weeping and flinching from empty air.

After he tried to kill himself. After Rey, tears streaking down her face, broke his own invisible grip on his throat and screamed at him that the Force, that she and the Force, wouldn’t let him die. After Rey cradled his dark head in her hands and told him that he wasn’t _allowed_ to die, because the Light needed him, and after she took his hands in hers as his weeping face fell against her shoulder and whispered something that no one else could hear.

Rose had been there to see that, and she supposes that, given a baseline of tears, madness, and self-inflicted oxygen deprivation, Kylo Ren _does_ look considerably better.

They’re all a little tense as they step down from the shuttle. The dreadnought has been remade, yes, but its bones remain, and despite the glittering surfaces and calm, creamy colors, the hangar feels unmistakably like what it once was, and that past hovers behind each of them, threatening them in different ways.

There are also a bunch of literal death threats, too, of course.

They aren’t the only ones arriving, by any means, and senators are descending from shuttles all around them, accompanied by retinues of servants or counselors or allies. They wear their hair in elaborate piles, or have tall, imposing hats; their skin is gilded with paint, and jewels glitter on their arms and their necks; optic cords in shifting colors are wrapped around their shoulders, lighting their faces with dramatic glows. Rose suddenly feels a little plain, despite the sheen of her gauze and the sparkle of Finn’s embroidery. But Finn sees what she sees, and he doesn’t shrink, or hide, the way she wants to. His head goes back, his chin rises and his mouth hardens. He looks how he’d looked in his purloined First Order officer’s uniform. Icy. Commanding. Handsome. Even a little frightening.

Rey sees him, sees his determination to outface all the gaudily-dressed galactic politicians surrounding them, and her shoulders go back, too. She steps closely beside Rose, and becomes somehow _ostentatiously_ observant, piercing eyes running over everyone present as if they mattered only insofar as they might present a threat. Kylo reflects her; he draws himself up to his full height, his broad shoulders squared, his body oriented in clear reflection of Finn. His heavy hand rests on the hilt of his lightsaber. And suddenly everyone knows who they are, the four of them, and no one else in the shuttle bay can hope to measure up to their glamour and prestige.

Rey’s voice is quiet. “Would you like to give them a show, Senator?”

The mischief in Rey’s voice makes her want to smile, but the title reminds her to lift her own head, and look cooly at the other legislators and their entourages as they try not to gawk. She is Senator Tico, Primary Representative of the Outer Rim (12.5 trillion votes); she represents more than 600 worlds; she’s come here to make sure they receive justice, and Rey is standing by her side to keep her safe. No one can touch her.

“No,” she says, inclining her head towards Rey’s. “Not… now.”

Rey gives her a respectful nod which masks her dancing eyes, and takes her place just a step behind Rose.

* * *

The Senate chamber itself is laid out in a dense, widening helix. Rose is discomfited to discover that there's nowhere for Rey to sit in her designated little pod-seat-thing. (There must be a dignified Old Republic name for them, but as far as she's concerned, they're just limited-range magnetic traction pods with nice chairs bolted on.) She looks for where Finn is seated, beside the delegations from the Western Reaches and the Mid-Rim, and sees that Kylo's chosen to simply stand behind Finn's chair, feet planted wide and hands crossed in the small of his back. She can't make Rey _stand_ the whole time. But Rey laughs. "I looked at the schedule," she tells Rose. "There are three hours scheduled for the introductory addresses. Standing up is the least of my worries."

"Oh no," says Rose in dismay. "Will you pinch me if it looks like I'm falling asleep?"

"I will if you will."

They both manage to stay awake, but the speeches run even longer than they’re scheduled to. Rose knows, because her seat is fitted with a little screen that tells her the time, and the speaker's name and titles, and shows the text of the speech in several languages and scripts. When the oaths begin, it provides a close shot of each senator as they take their vow. Rose watches closely, looking for the people she knows might be her allies. Her delegation is hardly unified – it's not as if the Secondary Representative who got all the votes from Arkanis is going to support her – but there are enough votes on Kashyyk and Shu-Torun that some of the Mid-Rim Representatives might vote with her. And of course the Western Reaches, and Finn’s Dispossessed contingent.

Finn stands to take his oath, and a sharp-edged susurration fills the chamber. The representatives of the Core and the Colonies are hissing. Finn’s voice doesn’t waver. The close-in view on the screen shows that his face remains perfectly calm. It's not really a surprise, when Rose's turn comes, that she too rises to her feet to the sound of hissing.

 _"Thief!"_ cries someone seated below them. _"Parasite!"_

Rose isn’t going to flinch. Whoever’s shouting, she’s bitten scarier things than them.

What she’s not prepared for is to see Rey’s hand move as suddenly as it does, or for the startled yelp that comes from a seat above them a half second after.

“It was nothing, Senator,” Rey murmurs. But the murmur comes through clenched teeth. Rose takes her oath in total silence.

* * *

She’d thought that they’d all have to go to a formal dinner afterward, and she’s very relieved when C-3PO corrects her. “Oh no, Senator,” he says, “all representatives are to be conducted to their quarters following the inauguration, where meals may be eaten in private.” Rose slumps in relief, but then he adds, “There is of course a formal breakfast tomorrow morning.”

“Formal _breakfast?”_ Rey asks incredulously.

“Formal breakfasts, while rare, are in fact the highest form of ceremonial dining,” the droid informs them. He sounds like he’s disappointed in them for not knowing. But then, he sounds like that a lot.

“But we can get caf in our rooms first, right?” Rose doesn’t know what she’ll do if the answer is no.

“Of course, Senator.”

She’s relieved to see on the map the little round guide-droid projects that she and Finn are housed next to one another. But when they get there, Kylo Ren is standing in the hallway, shouting at Finn’s guide-droid as it scoots back from him in terror.

“Of _course_ the exterior door has to be _locked!_ But do you expect me to stand in the hallway typing in a code while who-knows-what might be happening to the senator?” When he sees them – well, no, when he sees _Rey_ – he makes an effort to calm himself, but he’s still almost spitting as he tells her, “Our rooms don’t connect to theirs.”

Rey turns to the guide-droid. Her tone is much more courteous than Kylo’s. “We need to be able to get to them to protect them. Do you have any rooms that have guard quarters?”

The guide-droid who brought Rey and Rose makes an uncomfortable grinding noise, and projects the map again. Kylo bites his lip, and points to another spot on the map. “Some senior officers had – there were – maybe they’ve been redone, but. These rooms. Used to all connect.” The map zooms. There’s no sign that the four rooms he’s pointing at connect to one another. “Did they rebuild them? Or did they just block up the doors?”

Both droids fidget, the luggage hooks on their fronts tilting in uncertainty. “Let’s see,” Rey says. “If they’ve been blocked off, we can reopen them. And if they’ve just been locked, we can open them up.”

The doors are still there, and they do prove to have been blocked off – very thoroughly. Rey turns to Finn and Rose. “Do you mind if we share your rooms, just for tonight? We can get these cleared tomorrow, while we’re out.”

“I don’t mind,” Rose says.

“I’m not tired,” Kylo says. “I can stand watch outside the senator’s door for tonight.” His eyes are focused on nothing in particular.

“I… think we can probably find you a bedroll,” Finn says.

The room is far larger than any berth Rose has had in her life; the bed’s as wide as it is tall – and it’s taller than Rose is, by a good shot. There’s carpeting, which Rose hadn’t thought was a real thing – but there it is, everywhere. _You could walk around barefoot, and you wouldn’t be cold._ And sleek black drawers that lie perfectly flush with the wall when they’re closed, and a closet that smells of something pleasant, and a mirror wider than Rose’s arm-span, with soft lights at its edge.

She doesn’t know what’s in her own luggage; C-3PO has ordered it all. Rey helps her get it all into the drawers and the closet and the fresher. They keep having to ask the protocol droid to explain what, exactly, this or that is. Rose is startled to discover that there aren’t just clothes; C-3PO has arranged for her to have jewelry, too. She’s doubly startled to discover, carefully packed at the top of one box, an enormous curved teardrop of metal – a copy of her pendant, but huge, and made of something much shinier and more fragile than Haysian smelt. 

“Ah,” he says when she holds it up. “I took the liberty of commissioning that from an artisan the late Princess Leia used to patronize. I believe that it attaches to the head rather cleverly.”

Rose walks to the mirror. It takes her a moment to figure out the logic of the thin strands of metal that are meant to fasten it under her hair. When it’s on, though, it feels secure; she shakes her head, hard, and it doesn’t even jiggle. She looks at herself. The round side of the drop is wider than her head, and the narrow end curls high over her.

“It looks like a halo,” Rey says.

Rose thinks it looks like a hand, a protective hand, shielding her head. She thinks of Paige. And then of Rey’s sudden motion in the senate hall.

“Thank you, Threepio,” she says. “It’s beautiful.”

“Master Meseven’s work is unsurpassed,” he says, sounding pleased. “And I thought you might find it a, ah, _convenient_ way to display your pride in your homeworld. So you are most welcome, Senator.”

Finn and Kylo join them for dinner, carrying trays, and they eat companionably, seated on the floor, as C-3PO goes to make sure that Finn’s room meets his standards. Rey, as always, splits up her food – the soft, dry grain goes into a flask in her pocket, and the bread she splits in half, putting one half in her sleeve, before she settles down to eat the cooked vegetables and dip the remaining bread in the sauce. Only Kylo has the bad manners to stare at her as she does this, but he stares at Rey a lot, so Rose supposes she’s used to it by now. That doesn’t make it polite, though, and Rose wishes he would stop. If there were a table she’d kick him in the shin. She tries thinking the words _stop gawking like you’ve never seen a poor person before you big rude lufstrat_ as loudly and clearly as she can. It doesn’t seem to work. _I guess your telepathic skills are overrated. You thoughtless boof._

“I thought they were going to gut this thing,” Finn says as he eats. “But they seem to have kept a lot of it. If you can recognize the floor plan, and the doors are still there.”

“The senate chamber’s replaced the main weaponry array. There’s new paint. Everything else seems the same.”

“It makes sense,” Rose points out. “Why would you tear down perfectly good rooms if rooms are what you need?”

“It’s not very equitable, though, is it? The rooms they had us in before were more like lieutenants' quarters. These seem like rooms for generals. Admirals. Marshals. High ranking officers.”

“Admirals,” Kylo says. “These rooms were admirals’ rooms.”

“Were they all married to each other?” Rey’s face is lit with curiosity. “Is that why the rooms all connect?”

“Three of them were married to each other. The fourth was only married to one of those three. I think this room was hers.”

“What were their names?”

“Kalneez, Perol… Garmen, and… Vatch, I think.” Kylo’s voice is quiet; he’s shredding his bread with his fingers. The names aren’t familiar to Rose. She wonders if they’re dead now, those admirals, or living under false names somewhere, claiming to have been humble stormtroopers. Kylo doesn’t sound like he cares very much. She wonders if she, or Finn, or anyone besides Rey, is anything but a vague blur to him.

It’s a relief when dinner is over and the two men retreat, and C-3PO withdraws to a droid station in the hall, but it isn’t until Rey actually unrolls the bedroll the guide-droid delivers that Rose realizes she’s planning to sleep on the floor. “Rey! Rey, no. You have to sleep in the bed with me tonight.” Rey looks at her in puzzlement, and Rose realizes very suddenly what she’s said. But she can’t let Rey sleep on the _floor._ “The bed is so big,” she continues, and busies herself with turning down the sheets, hoping that it hides her blush, “we won’t be in each other’s way at all. And I mean I used to share a bed with Paige every night...”

She remembers the soft, grumbly warmth of Paige, Paige’s elbow somehow in her ear, Paige’s arm wrapped lovingly around her neck. When she glances at Rey again, her freckled face is very soft, so soft that Rose wonders if Rey might not outmatch Kylo Ren in reading minds as well as she does in almost everything. “All right,” Rey says.

But sleeping with Rey is not like sleeping with Paige, not at all. Rose doesn’t look as Rey unbuckles her belt and slides her creamy jacket off her shoulders. She concentrates on unspooling all twenty-two – okay, eight – meters of her gauze and folding it neatly. She tries to dull her ears to the sound of Rey pulling apart the knot that holds her trousers together; the whisper of the fabric falling to the floor should be too soft for her to notice, it really should be. And when the lights are out and they are both under the covers, she should not feel the way the sheets – so soft, so light – shift minutely against her skin as Rey breathes. And she shouldn’t calculate in her mind the perimeter of Rey’s body without clothes, how close her hand is to Rose’s hand, what parts of her Rose could touch if she reached… Rose needs to stop this immediately; Rey can read minds; Rose is as bad as Kylo Ren, staring at her all the time like he’s starving.

“What happened?” she asks quickly, quietly. “While I was taking my oath?”

Rey doesn’t say anything for a moment. The sheet doesn’t stir with her breathing, not even a little. The she shifts, turns on to her side, facing away from Rose. “Someone spit. I stopped it.” She shifts a little more, so her voice is muffled by the pillow. “Sent it back where it came from.”

That explains the yelp. Rose turns on her side, too, so they’re both facing the same direction. Dimly, she can see the outline of Rey’s back under the sheet, the spill of her hair against the pillow. “Thank you.”

“Just my job,” Rey mumbles. “And my pleasure, really. Bunch of slime-sucking core-world cunts.”

Rose sucks in a little air. It’s the strongest language she’s ever heard Rey use – and it’s in her defense. Or no, she reminds herself, not necessarily; Rey has her own reasons to hate the kind of senator who would spit at Rose. But she can’t help it. She feels warmer. She swallows.

“Sorry,” says Rey, turning back onto her back. Rose should turn onto her back, too, but she doesn’t. Rey has little breasts, smaller than hers. They’re soft swells under the sheet.

“What for?”

“I thought maybe I’d offended you. Crude language and all.”

“No,” Rose says, shaking her head against the pillow. Then she’s too curious. “Can’t you tell? Was I not thinking… loud enough?”

Rey laughs. “That’s not how the Force works. Most people aren’t like ticker-coms; you don’t put out some stream of thoughts I can read. It’s more like… if I wanted to, I could go into your head like I was walking into a room, and look around. But you would notice, if I did.”

Rose could melt with relief. But something catches her ear. “Most people aren’t like ticker-coms… some people are?”

Rey angles her face more to the ceiling. “I can hear Ben that way sometimes. And he can hear me. It’s… useful.” She licks her lips; Rose hears it, sees the flash of her tongue in the darkness. “Sometimes.”

“Is it ever hard?” Rose asks in a whisper. As if Kylo Ren might hear her. “Being… linked to him like that?”

The sheet beneath them wrinkles as Rey tugs at it with restless fingers. “I suppose,” she says, after a moment. “Sometimes. Yes. Sometimes it’s hard. He’s unhappy. He’s calmer on the outside, now. But his thoughts… it’s like sleeping in a medbay, I think. Sometimes it’s peaceful and sometimes there’s so much pain, screaming, blood everywhere… it’s hard to bear it.”

“I’m sorry,” Rose murmurs. “I’m sorry it’s so hard.”

“It’s all right.” Rey turns again, so that now she’s facing Rose. But she doesn’t meet her gaze; her eyes follow her own hand as it plays with the sheet between them. “He – helps me sometimes. We help each other.”

She doesn’t say how, or what problems she has that Kylo can help her with. Nothing Rose could understand, maybe; problems only Jedi could have or solve. But watching Rey’s narrow fingers pluck at the sheet, the tender little frown that creases her forehead, Rose aches. When Rose was heartsick, torn up inside by the pain that surrounded them, all the people who hurt without help, Paige would gather her into her arms at night, so that Rose never felt alone. But she can’t gather Rey up like that. Not when her heart speeds with every movement of Rey’s body in the bed beside her. But she can’t just lie there, not when Rey looks so sad.

She moves her hand slowly up from her side, and lets it press just a few inches towards Rey, just so she can see it’s there. “I don’t know if… I can. But if I can. Please.” She swallows, and hopes it isn’t too loud. “Please let me help.”

Rey’s eyes are so bright, even in the dark. She stares at Rose’s outstretched hand as if it were a word in a language she knew. She swallows too, and her hand folds into Rose’s. Her eyes come up to meet Rose’s eyes, and then flutter closed. “Thank you,” she whispers, and Rose watches, wakeful, until her bodyguard’s breathing smooths into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My idea of Rose's dress is something like a [Gujarati sari,](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/04/a4/92/04a49286502b3014e77bb940460d8afa.jpg) only with the pallu/drape coming all the way to the ground in the front, and, of course, fancy space fabric.


	2. Design Failures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is it ironic that it’s when he closest to Rey that he’s closest to the Dark? He doesn’t think so. But he can hardly _think_ at all, not with Rey under him like this; he can only want her, and try to have her, and know he’s failing even as he goes out of his mind with how good she feels. Because she won’t tell him. Won’t share her dream with him. He doesn’t deserve it. He can’t deserve it, any more than he can heal the crystal in his saber. 
> 
> Despair is a passion, too, he’s learned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mild content warning: the issue of consent around the voyeurism in this chapter is muddy -- the listening party makes a good-faith attempt not to listen, but the fact remains that the other party is unaware of the listening, which makes it nonconsensual. There is also a brief discussion of conception.

Whatever Rose had imagined a “formal breakfast” would be like, the reality is worse. She has to sit between the primary representatives of the Colonies and the Core Worlds and make polite conversation, even though they’re terrible people who hate her. Yes, Finn’s seated across from her, but the table’s so wide she’d have to shout to make him hear her, and Rey has to stand against the wall to let the serving droids pass, so she’s really alone. And absolutely everyone is staring at her. It isn’t because she’s the most interesting person in the room; they have plenty of options on that front. It isn’t because she’s come here with an agenda to rehabilitate and make reparations to the galaxy’s exploited planets and peoples; Finn signed his name to that agenda too, and the two of them won’t be the only ones to vote for it. It’s because everything at the table is _extremely_ fancy, and they know she doesn’t know how it ought to go, and she’s going to do everything wrong and look like an idiot.

C-3PO had tried to coach her – apparently it was all very simple, once you knew the order of the nine small courses, the four principal courses, and the seven steps of the Coruscanti High Tea Ceremony. Rey, listening to the droid’s anxious lecture, and watching Rose’s face, had given them her sharpest and most savage grin. “Eat everything with your hands. Or your knife. Look them dead in the eyes and drink the tea straight from the bloody pot.” And so of course at the time, when it was just them in the room and Rey’s desert-dry swagger filled the air like spice smoke, Rose had smiled back and thought, _12.5 trillion votes. Primary Representative of the Outer Rim. Who cares what they think?_ But it’s different here, with everyone staring, and all the implements arrayed in front of her, shiny and sharp and fragile. She wishes she were anywhere else.

She wishes more than anything she were back in bed, the way she’d woken up in the early hours of the morning, with Rey’s hand hot and a little damp in hers, and Rey’s head on her breasts, her faint snoring and her fly-away hair tickling and itching at Rose’s skin. Rey’s strong, round arm slung across her waist, Rey’s calloused foot hooked around her calf, and the sheets tucked in close around them both. Raising her head to look down at her guard as she slept, Rose was reminded of the tenacious little stone-squirrels of Hays Minor, and the way, if you approached their caches of food, they’d dash to throw themselves on top of their precious hauls, glaring and chittering. She’d let her head drop back on the pillow, and allowed herself to imagine – just for a second, just for a little minute – that she wasn’t just protected, but – prized.

Then C-3PO had come in with the caf droid, advising her to put on the purple dress with the high, stiff collar, and Rey had bolted awake and out of the bed, away from Rose, and that was the end of that. And now here she was, staring miserably at a thousand little utensils, everyone around her watching to see how badly the little menial from the mines would humiliate herself. Here came the droids with the first round of tea, one tiny metal pot for each of them. She takes it graciously enough, but then she freezes. There are at least four cups laid out in front of her. She tries to look and see what Finn is doing – he’s been married to Poe long enough to learn at least the basics of these things – but he’s already served himself, and –

The pot in her hands moves. 

She almost drops it. But it presses itself so firmly against her right hand that she _can’t_ drop it, as it slides gracefully to the second-smallest cup and stops.

She keeps her composure long enough to pour the cup and take a polite sip before she darts her head around to look at Rey. But Rey’s not looking at her, she’s looking across the room, her lips in a soft curve. Rose follows her look, and finds that Kylo Ren’s brown eyes are fixed intently on the place setting in front of her. The handle of one of the spoons to her right moves minutely toward her. Rose picks it up a half-second before everyone else picks up theirs.

Rose keeps making polite conversation – oh yes, the food is very good, the tea is the perfect temperature, no, she’s never been to that parlor in Por Katune but she’s sure it’s very nice, yes, her dress from yesterday was from her homeworld – and each utensil signals to her, or presses itself into her palm as she hovers her hand over it. Kylo’s fingers twitch in his worn gloves, and fewer and fewer people stare at her, as the promise of a mortifying failure fades away to nothing.

When the speeches have been given and they’ve all risen and made their bows, Rose walks around the table, Rey at her back, as fast as she thinks senatorial dignity will allow. (Maybe just a little faster. No one’s really looking at her at all now.) Kylo’s stepped away from the wall, taking a place at Finn’s side. But just before she can get to them, a secondary representative she doesn’t recognize, a human man with pink skin and no hair, touches Kylo’s elbow. “Ben Solo!” He’s wearing swirling robes in black and white, and he smiles amiably as Kylo stares down at him, unblinking. “What a thing, to find you here. Not the capacity in which I’d have thought to see Leia Organa’s son in a senate house, but these are strange times, aren’t they?”

“It’s my honor and my privilege to guard the Primary Representative of the Dispossessed,” Kylo says. His voice is slow and thick as the dark syrup on the table. “And you don’t get to call me by that name.”

The man’s smile only slips a little. “But Ben, of course you must know I knew your mother – ”

“You don’t. Get. To call me. That.”

Does the secondary representative remember the stories about the First Order officers with fractured bones and voices hoarse from choking? Does he see the dark hilt of the lightsaber that still burns red? Maybe he does. He takes a step back.

Or maybe he doesn’t, or maybe not well enough to be wise, because there’s a faint sneer on his lips. “Well, what should I call you, then? Supreme Leader?”

Gloved fingers twitch. “Kylo Ren. Ren. ‘You there, guard.’ Whatever you like.”

The Secondary Representative opens his mouth again. Rose interrupts. “I’m sorry, but I believe Senator Dameron has an appointment with me.”

“Ah.” The sneer is overt, now. “Time to settle the fine details of extortion?”

“When you stole from us, you called it trade,” Rose says. “Or ‘wartime precautions.’ Or sometimes you didn’t call it anything at all; you just let it happen, and enjoyed the profits. And now you’re angry, when we’re not even going to make you give everything back.” She shows him her teeth. In a smile. “Mostly just because it’s physically impossible, though. Anything I can make you give back? I will make you give back.”

“The galaxy is at peace,” he spits. “The time for pillaging is over.” 

“Easy to say when you’ve already looted everything in sight. Peace without justice is a lie.”

“No, no,” Finn interrupts, mock-soothing. “I’m sure the honorable senator hasn’t had time to read through our agenda yet. Or maybe he just hasn’t gotten through the last pages. Senator, we think material equality is the best way to guarantee peace. Rose – I mean, Senator Tico – prefers to discuss it in philosophical terms, but we have studies from _very_ reputable institutions.” He puts his hand on the man’s arm, giving it a gentle, friendly shake. “If you’re planning to oppose our agenda in debate, you might want to take a look at those.”

The senator is deathly white at his nostrils and eyes. “You _insolent trash,”_ he snarls, staring at Finn’s hand, and then the air freezes around them.

There’s no cold wind, no cough of failing thermo stabilizers. Just a silent, drastic plunge in the temperature. Rose shivers, but the secondary representative’s teeth chatter; his limbs tremble in his black and white robes, and the color drops from his cheeks; blue edges into his lips.

“Senator Dameron has an appointment.” Kylo performs something that is some kind of sullen cousin to a bow. “We’ll see you later, Senator Gleck.” He turns away, and Finn and Rose take the cue and turn too. Rey does not turn. She stares at the secondary representative, her eyes hard and furious. Kylo brushes her hand so lightly it almost seems accidental. But Rey breathes in abruptly, and the air stirs, returning to a normal temperature. Then she turns, too, and they leave the man to warm himself as best he can.

“Tannar Gleck,” Kylo says, when they’re a few paces away. “Heavy industry money. Don’t do that again, Rey; it’s a miracle you didn’t set off a thousand maintenance alarms.”

“Yes. Sorry.”

“Just choke him next time.” Finn’s voice is light, and he makes a bit of rubbing his arms.

“If I’d choked him he’d have blamed Ben.”

“He’s not going to turn that against us, is he?” Rose asks. “Claim we’re trying to intimidate him into silence or something?”

“Oh. I hadn’t thought. I’m sorry, Rose; I’m so _stupid.”_

It’s not subtle, this time, the way Kylo reaches for Rey. But she ignores him and he drops his hand. “They probably would have said it anyway. I should have gone along with him. Played _nice.”_

“Then they’d just have said, ‘Oh, Leia’s son was so friendly to me, you know _he_ knows those ignorant dirt-grubs are wrong,’” Finn points out.

“‘And if even _Leia Organa’s_ son knows...’” Kylo Ren’s assumed Core accent is thin and snide; Rose can’t help a little smile. Of course a man like that wouldn’t have thought much of the late General’s politics.

“So we’re better off looking for the party whips than worrying about it. Who do you think knows where to find ‘em? C-3PO? Where’d you two leave him?” Finn cranes his neck around the room.

“He’s waiting in the hall,” Rose says, and remembers that she’d come over here in such a hurry to thank Kylo for his help. But he’s following Finn as he strides off towards the corridor. She opens her mouth to say his name, and then she remembers the way he’d told Senator Gleck what to call him. _Kylo Ren. Ren. ‘You there, guard.’_ All in the same tone. All… insults, it seemed to Rose, like he was inviting the senator to insult him. But he lets Rey call him Ben. Tolerates it from her, or asks it of her, or…?

Rose shuts her mouth, and resolves to thank him later.

* * *

Whips from two of the larger minority parties agree to see what they can do. If Finn and Rose can poach a few from the plurality… well. They’re not in a bad position to bargain, anyway. They’re looking for an empty conference room so they can research individual senators when the silver-and-white protocol droid approaches them. Rose’s mechanic’s ear detects a sudden spike in the speed of C-3PO’s internal workings, and tries not to smile. They’ll have to reassure him later, promise him he’s still their invaluable favorite even if he can’t bend at the waist the way this one does.

“The Senatorial Social Committee greets Senators Dameron and Tico with great respect, and offers their salutations to their distinguished guards. The Committee wishes to invite Jedi Mistress Rey and Master Ren to give a demonstration of their martial accomplishments to an assembled company of interested senators this evening after the dinner hour. The Committee hurries to assure you that every precaution to safeguard the two senators will be taken while you are otherwise occupied.”

It’s Rey’s hand that brushes Kylo’s this time. Does it always mean the same thing to them, touching like that? Or does it let them speak silently to each other? Or do they have some personal index of touch, some shared language, independent of their powers? Kylo stays silent. Rey bends past him and whispers in C-3PO’s ear. He blinks eagerly as he listens, and shuffles forward to meet the other droid. Rose knows it’s not physically possible for shoulders made of unjointed, unyielding metal to straighten, but it seems somehow that the immensity of C-3PO’s pride in fulfilling his function allows them to.

“Senators Dameron and Tico return the Committee’s gracious greeting, and Jedi Mistress Rey and Master Ren will be pleased to acquiesce to the Committee’s request, provided that they can first be allowed to ascertain for themselves the security and appropriateness of the suggested venue, and that the Committee will be so good as to wait until tomorrow night.”

The Social Committee’s messenger bows again. “It is most gracious of you. I will return with an answer as promptly as I may.”

The droid has barely turned its back before Kylo is openly frowning at Rey.

“A good show is a good weapon,” she tells him, and Rose thinks from her tone she must be quoting someone. Possibly General Organa. “And if Rose and Finn will help us, I think we can put on an _excellent_ show.”

* * *

Rose and Finn split up, Finn to try and schmooze, Rose to study the roster for allies, and to try to learn more about the opposition. It bothers her that she hadn’t known Senator Gleck. Rey quizzes her on the names of key votes, and they work out some of the more advanced functions of the screen in her pod-seat.

When they meet again at their rooms for dinner, they discover that the business of clearing the doors has not gone very quickly. Of the three doors between the four rooms, only two are clear.

“So we have three connected rooms. Have Finn sleep tonight in the third, you take the middle one, and I’ll share with Rose again.” Rey’s attention seems fixed on the business of dividing up her food.

Kylo, again, can’t seem to stop staring at her. “You should have a bed. I can sleep on the floor again tonight.”

Rey begins to eat, but she still doesn’t look at anyone. “If Poe arrives early, he and Finn won’t appreciate you being on their floor, will they?” Rose had forgotten that Poe was coming tomorrow morning. That’s something to look forward to.

“I could come and sleep on your floor, then,” Kylo says. His voice is very low. Rey’s color rises.

“Thanks for this morning,” Rose blurts, trying to cover the blush which is burning in her own cheeks, because Rey is arguing to sleep in her bed again tonight. _For Kylo Ren’s sake,_ she reminds herself. “For helping me this morning. With the – tea, and everything.”

He only meets her eyes for a second before he drops his eyes to his food. “It was nothing.”

“It helped me. They were all watching me.”

“They’re all stuck-up,” he says. “They don’t care about anything but the temperature of their tea and who your parents are and whether you put the right foot forward when you bowed to the Crown Prince of Partin VI.” He takes a drink. Finn and Rose have been given wine, but whoever is in charge of the meals has sent water for their guards. Kylo throws it back like it’s Corellian whiskey, like it burns him.

Rose thinks that he is burned, but not by the water. They don’t talk further about who will sleep where, but after dinner, he retreats quietly into the next room.

Which means that Rey is there with her, and when she struggles with the closure on her dress, Rey’s hands are there at the back of her neck, brushing her fingers through the fine soft hairs as the high collar peels back. Does she feel them ghosting down her spine for a moment, or did she only imagine that? _She’s only here to spare Kylo Ren from sleeping on the floor._

In the bed, they lie silent for a moment or two. Rose tried to think about blocs, representatives, who will vote how. Not the way Rey’s tucked one of her arms up under her head, and the way it elongates her lean lines. She’s like the bright, expensive beskar wire Rose took in coils to repair sites, measuring its elastic length out by wrapping it tight and tense around her fingers.

When she turns on her side, frowning, Rose jumps. “Why _didn’t_ it set off maintenance alarms?”

“What?”

“I stopped the air around that – Senator Gleck – the temperature drop would have been serious. It _should_ have set off a maintenance alarm.”

Rose thinks. “It didn’t last very long. The ceilings are high; if the sensors are up there, the temperature might have re-stabilized before the air up there had cooled enough for them to register it.”

“Yes,” Rey says, “but who puts sensors in _just_ the ceiling? If you have a life support failure – or I mean, you could have a _breach;_ you can’t spare seconds waiting for that to information to filter through.”

“That’s true.” Rose remembers the floor plan the droid had projected, how well Kylo’d known it, how little the ship has changed from when it was a First Order dreadnought. Who knows what they prioritized in their sensor systems? But it had been Kylo who’d remarked on how the alarms hadn’t gone off. “Maybe all the crew-level sensor ports have to be devoted to material recapture? The ship is so big – they have to take moisture efficiency seriously.”

Rose can see Rey shake her head in the dark room. “I used to take dreadnoughts apart all the time. There were never that many moisture-cap cells in one compartment quadrant.”

“It might be an engineering flaw. It’s First Order tech, after all.”

Rey laughs, and Rose squirms a little with the pleasure of the sound. “True. But maybe we can fix it.”

“Good thing I packed a jumpsuit, huh?” She’s trying to make Rey laugh now, and it works, and Rose can enjoy that, can’t she, just laughing together with Rey? Just lying in the dark and laughing.

* * *

Rey wakes up in the night with Ben’s voice in her head. **I can feel you. You’re warm. Come here.**

She blinks. She is warm. Ben means… one thing, and yes, that’s true, she can feel it, but she’s warm like a sunny day on Ach-To, too, warm like a mild morning on Jakku. Oh. She’s curled herself up around Rose in the night.

**Please come.**

She draws away to her side of the bed. Rose sighs in her sleep, and turns to the place where Rey used to be. The sigh opens her lips a little.

**Please, Rey.**

Rey slips out of the bed.

**Please.**

* * *

He hears the door open. He could feel her; she was sleeping, but he couldn’t sleep, not feeling her feel like that.

He’s being selfish again.

She stops just inside the door. She’s already almost naked. 

He holds his hand out to her. It’s part of his punishment, that this is part of the ritual of it. That he say _please_ and hold out his hand while she hesitates and his mouth goes dry. He’s never quite numb to the humiliation.

But he can feel the heat in her, how wet she is; that’s what kept him awake. The longing in her body ricochets in his. He shifts under the sheet, so she can see, though he knows she must know anyway.

“Please,” he says, aloud this time.

She comes to him, and he pulls her into the bed.

* * *

Is it the chill that wakes Rose up, or the sound? She opens her eyes and she’s shivering, and she can hear Rey moaning. On the other side of the wall.

She shivers again, and not from the cold of an empty bed. Of course she’d go to him. Rose should have assumed that would happen. _He helps me sometimes,_ she’d said.

She shouldn’t listen. She should put her pillow over her head – her pillow, not the one that smells like Rey’s hair – and go back to sleep. She has to give a speech tomorrow. 

Rey moans again, a deep, slow sobbing sound, and Rose _aches._

No wonder she goes to him, if he can make her make sounds like that. What’s he using? Hands? Mouth? Cock? He’s a big man; does Rey like that? She can hear, very faintly, a soft scrabbling sound, fingers raking at sheets, she thinks; if they were fucking she’d hear that, hear their bodies come together. She only hears Rey; he must have his mouth on her.

How can she hear so well; what are these walls made of? This whole ship is nothing but one giant design failure.

Rey gives a muffled scream, and Rose puts her pillow over head. Her eyes sting.

* * *

She screams, and he feels her climax in the spasm of her thighs around his neck and in his own head like a firework, and his hands clutch at her where she lies above him on the bed. His heart is racing madly. He is selfish, and she knows it, he can’t hide it from her. He wants her body, her Light, his own enjoyment, his own Dark: he wants and wants and wants. He pulls her underneath him and whispers in her ear, harsh and hot as she rakes him with her nails, “Do you like making me beg? I think you do.” Her anger strikes him like a blow but she still opens her legs, and anyway she knows he likes it when she hits him. He rubs the head of his cock through her wetness, making her squirm, making his eyes water with the promise of pleasure. He _hopes_ she likes it when he begs; it’s the only way he gets her here, and he always wants to have her here, always.

* * *

The pillow was a mistake. She can’t stop _trying_ to hear through it, and her imagination takes up all the slack and more. She imagines Rey kneeling over his head, his huge pale hands supporting her as she arches back and her loose hair brushes across his stomach, her breasts round and perfect as tea cups. She imagines his red mouth shining and wet as he takes it off Rey’s body, Rey’s thighs twitching and trembling. Imagines Rey leaving kisses and bites across his broad shoulders, making him shudder with her thin strong hands. That was a thump, that she just heard, right? He’s definitely strong enough to pick her up; they are definitely having sex against the wall; there’s no point in this pillow at all. 

She throws it away and gets out of bed, walking to the mirror. She turns on its soft light. There’s no thumping. She imagined it. She looks at herself. 

She tries, for a moment, to pretend she frames this in moral terms: he’s a monster, a criminal. Rey is fucking him when she’s meant to be guarding Rose. She fails dismally, staring at her red eyes; pain is written all over her face. _What are you so sad about?_ she asks her reflection. Short. Round-faced. Ordinary. _The two strongest Force-users in the galaxy are fucking, and you’re sad because – ?_

She and her reflection both know. They stare at each other. A pact of silence around her own stupidity.

* * *

Ben’s eyes search hers. It always makes her uncomfortable; what does he think he’ll find? What does he think he’ll get, that he can’t get by asking? He pulled at her, teased her; she knows he wants to fuck her, and she’s spread her legs for him, so why is he pausing now?

“Were you dreaming?” he asks her. “What were you dreaming that got you like this?” He reaches down to brush her with his fingertips, reminding her how wet she is, how wet she was before he called to her.

She had been dreaming. If he wants to fuck her he should; she’s ready to be fucked hard. She rubs herself against his thigh. He doesn’t move, just lets a little more of his weight fall on her.

“Tell me what you dreamt,” he whispers. **Or show me.**

 **Hard, Ben. Do it hard.** She nips at his soft lip. It’s wet with the taste of her. She laps at his mouth. She knows what she tastes like, has kissed herself off his lips and sucked herself off his fingers. But tonight she wants to get it all on her tongue, lick him clean as a sun-bleached bone.

He drives his mouth hard against hers and his cock hard into her body, just like she asked him to.

“Did you dream about this?” He growls it into her shoulder, bending himself over her as he fucks her. “About the way you make me beg and the way I make you come?”

She wraps her legs around his waist, pulls herself to him as hard as he’s pushing himself into her. She had been dreaming. He woke her up.

* * *

Is it ironic that it’s when he closest to Rey that he’s closest to the Dark? He doesn’t think so. But he can hardly _think_ at all, not with Rey under him like this; he can only want her, and try to have her, and know he’s failing even as he goes out of his mind with how good she feels. Because she won’t tell him. Won’t share her dream with him. He doesn’t deserve it. He can’t deserve it, any more than he can heal the crystal in his saber. 

Despair is a passion, too, he’s learned.

Like his other passions, it spills over, uncontrollable, and Rey feels it, and fights it, tries to drown it out by dragging him with her into her physical pleasure. **I’m full of you, so full. Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Harder.** He wants to ask her again if she dreams of him. He only does what she asks, fucks her harder, and she gives him a soft little whimpered breath with every thrust, and then he thinks he _couldn’t_ fuck her any way but this, not when she sounds like that, not any more than he could ever pull his punches in a fight. But even as he feels her getting close again, even as she moves frantically to get the friction from him right where she wants it, he can feel the water gathering in his eyes. She doesn’t dream about him. Not like he dreams about her. She comes, wet and hot and blindingly tight around him, her back arching and pressing her elegant little breasts against him, her mind bright with her body’s sweet bliss, and his tears fall. **Tell me your dream; let me see it; let me see _you,_** he howls wordlessly, helplessly, and between her muddled pity and pleasure, and his furious hopelessness, he blunders into it, sees it unfold in front of him, pornographic and entrancing, and he comes apart, choking as he spills into her.

* * *

The sounds are so faint, but Rose can hear them so well. She tries, again, not to think about what’s causing them, but standing upright in front of the mirror, she can’t pretend it doesn’t affect her in the absolute last way she wants to be affected. Can’t pretend her fingers wouldn’t come away shiny and soaked if she put them between her legs. And she wants to, she wants to.

She gets back in the bed. Rey sounds like she’s _dying_ of pleasure, like pleasure is knocking the breath out of her. _He probably is knocking the breath out of her,_ Rose thinks, and then thinks, _anything is better than imagining that._ Yes, she’s stupid; yes, it’ll only hurt her in the end if she does what she’s about to do – but it’s not stupider or more painful than lying here imagining just how much Rey loves fucking him, what it must be like for him to make her come like that.

She rolls on her side, facing away from the door, closes her eyes, and pretends that Rey didn’t get out of bed and go to Kylo Ren. That she stayed here with Rose, crept close and put her arms around Rose. That she stroked Rose’s head as Rose licked and sucked at her breasts. That she turned her on her side and slid her hand over Rose’s hip and slowly inched her fingers to where Rose’s are. That she kissed the back of Rose’s neck, nipped at the dip of her shoulder, and held her while she squirmed, breathing warm against her ear as her fingers worked her patiently. That Rose threw her head back and Rey teased her softly: _Going to come for me, Rosie?_

When her breathing slows and she opens her eyes again, it was quiet. She's still alone, and there're no sounds from the room next door.

* * *

He falls on her so heavily she can barely breathe. She chooses not to push him off. She shouldn’t have shown him. She shouldn’t have come to him when he called. She should have known better.

She knew by the way his hips jerked that some part of him had liked what he saw, liked it a lot. And she’d heard that about men, generally. But he’d wanted it to be him, in her dreams. He wanted her to dream of the same thing he dreamed of.

He’d been so sure it would happen, the first time they fell into bed. When his mother was still alive and millions still called him their Supreme Leader. The Light Side and the Dark Side met where their bodies met, he told her, touching her just there, making her gasp. They were meant to come together like this, made for it. When he’d finished – quickly, in a frenzy, crying her name – he’d stroked her stomach softly, reverently. She’d barely understood.

It never happened. She can’t even remember how many times he’s come inside her now, and every month she bleeds on schedule. It doesn’t bother her, but it bothers him. It’s a judgement, he thinks. The Force has found him unworthy. He’s too far gone; he’s caused too much death to be allowed to bring life into the world. But he wants it, the same way he wants her. Past reason.

He breathes heavily, on top of her. She doesn’t want what he wants. The way he handles her floods her senses like a drug, makes her burn, and she relishes the way he falls apart when she touches him, but it’s not an act of worship and supplication the way it is for him.

And then this.

He rolls away. She inhales deeply, staring at the ceiling. She doesn’t know if she should say something. If it would help. Usually he’d hold her, now, sweep her against his chest. But he’s not even touching her. 

After a moment, he says, “I suppose you don’t want to go back to her with my come dripping down your leg.”

She jolts upright. She halfway wants to slap him, but there’s a raw, scraping note of pain in his voice she hasn’t heard for years now. Her heart clenches. She swallows, musters as much gentleness as she can. “It was just a dream, Ben.”

“Your clothes were already off when you came in here.”

“We were just _sleeping._ She used to sleep in one bed with her sister. She had an older sister, Ben. A gunner. They were orphaned. She died destroying a ship like this. They had matching pendants, from their homeworld. She never goes anywhere without hers.” Rey swallows. “That’s who I am to her. A replacement for Paige.” His eyes are black and soft, fixed on her. “It was only a dream.”

* * *

He’s a monster. He knows. It’s how he’s made. Rey knows, too, even if she doesn’t say it anymore. It should shift him from his self-pity, hearing how lost Rose has been, how alone in the world. But he only feels his own feelings, his own fear, yanking on him like a storm.

“I don’t understand,” is all he says. The room is dark. It’s dark inside his head.

“It was just a dream,” she repeats. “I look out for her. Like her sister did. And you look out for her too.” She leans in close to him, looking at him with her brilliant eyes. “I saw what you were doing for her this morning. Thank you, Ben. It was kind of you.” She rests her cool small hand on his chest. “It was good of you.”

She kisses him, lightly, on the mouth. The Light rips at him. She slips out of the bed.

* * *

Rose pretends to be asleep when the door opens again. She hears Rey’s footfalls – so soft, on the carpet – and waits for Rey to climb back in the bed. Smelling of sex and someone else. Not that Rose smells as innocent as a flower, herself. But Rey just stands there. And stands there. Rose can hear her breathing. Is Rey watching her? Can she tell what Rose has been doing? 

Finally she can’t take it anymore. She fake-stirs, murmuring a questioning sound.

“I’m here, Rose,” Rey whispers. “I’m here.” And Rose feels the bed sink as Rey climbs in and lies down beside her.


	3. A Good Show Is a Good Weapon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before she can stop herself, Rose says sharply, “Don’t call her that.”
> 
> Kylo jerks as if she’d slapped him, and Rey says, quickly, swallowing, “It’s all right. I was. I was a scavenger.”
> 
> “No,” Rose insists. “You were a salvager. Scavengers – scavengers move trash and eat dead things. Salvagers save what can be saved.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so long!

She thinks she's alone in the bed when she wakes up.  It hurts.  But it's a familiar kind of pain, one she expects, and so she hardly notices.  She lies still for a moment, staring at the ceiling. There are things to be done, things that won’t happen unless she does them. When she shifts in the bed, though, she notices the weight on her ankles, the lump in the bed.  “Rey?” Rey had come back. Rey is stuck with Rose all day; who could blame her for wanting time without her? (Time with Kylo Ren; time spent in pleasure and passion, while Rose is just – ) But she came back, and she stayed. Rose ducks her head under the sheets.  "Rey?"

It's dim, twilit and cozy.  Rey is curled, knees-to-chest, with her head on Rose's feet.  Rose's heart turns over, and then melts, warm and liquid.  Rey is so _soft_ when she sleeps.  Such a small, soft burrowing animal, with a sweet, open face that makes Rose want to protect her, to let her sleep as long as she wants, and shoo away anyone who would wake her up and make her worried or hurt. Rose just wants to stay here, where it’s warm, and be the one who guards Rey for once.

But Rose is very used to not getting what she wants.

"Rey," she says, coaxingly.  "Rey.  Wake up, Rey.  The caf droid is coming, Rey."  Rey just curls tighter.  "Rey.  Rey, we have things to do."  She wiggles her feet, just slightly, and Rey shifts and stirs. “Rey.” Hazel eyes jolt wide open, and Rey tries to leap to her to feet, which is unfortunate since the sheet is enormous and tucked in very firmly at the foot of the bed.  She scrambles, tangled and trussed, and falls in a bundle on Rose's knees.

It's impossible not laugh at the galaxy's most fearsome warrior, overcome by a big sheet and an awkward awakening, and Rose giggles, and then, when Rey's irritable "Oi!" comes muffled from the squirming bundle and the Force pushes Rose's legs aside without noticeably helping Rey, Rose gives in and laughs so hard she squeaks.  Rey pushes her right out of the bed for that, but Rose keeps laughing, rolling on the soft luxury of the carpeting.

After a moment, Rey's head pokes over the edge of the bed, wispy-haired and scowling.  "I _could_ have just blasted my way out, you know.  But then the sheet would have had to be replaced.  And I'm nicer than that."

"Uh-huh," Rose giggles.  "Uh-huh.  Don't tell the Core Worlds, or they'll send an assassin armed with _two_ sheets, and then it's over for us!"

"Oi!" says Rey, again.  "Shush now.  We have important, serious things to do today."

"Right.  Like the extremely solemn and serious people we _obviously_ are."

C-3PO has gone along with Rey’s requests for today and let Rose get away with a neat, comfortable dress with a loose, flouncing skirt that only goes to her knees, and some brightly-polished, iridescent shoes that don’t pinch very much. Looking in the mirror, at all that fabric (somberly colored, at least, a deep midnight purple), at the shimmer of the shoes, Rose swallows hard against the guilt. C-3PO promised her that everything would come from people who were fairly paid, but she quails at the thought of all the work that must have gone into this dress, just this one dress, just for _her_ to wear it. She lifts her eyes from her hemline, which is embroidered with constellations, and sees Rey looking at her in the mirror. “I know,” she blurts. “It’s too fancy.”

Rey gives a little shake, like she’s still waking up. “What?”

“The dress. It’s ridiculous. To go out in all this fancy stuff. I don’t belong in it, do I?  I look like I’m trying to be something I’m not.”

Rey is quiet for a second. She tips her head to the side. “What’s that?”

Rose swallows. She looks at her reflection. Who belongs in these clothes, walking through these halls with these people, guarded by a Jedi? “Leia,” she whispers. “I look like I’m trying to be Leia.”

A smile bends Rey’s lips. “There are worse things to aim for.”

“I’m not… not coming very close, though.”

Rey must see the uncertainty in her reflection’s eyes. “Well,” she says, and takes a slow step towards Rose. “I think – we all loved Leia. And she did amazing, incredible things. Things maybe none of us could do.” Her fingers smooth over the seam on Rose’s shoulder, straightening, a touch so light Rose would never notice if she didn’t see it in the mirror. “But no one voted for Leia Organa. They voted for Rose Tico. Who knew Leia Organa, and learned from her, and knows a lot of things Leia Organa knew. But also knows some things she never did.” The weightless fingers ghost over Rose’s hair, the pins she’s put in to hold it back. Rey draws out the pins, and Rose’s hair springs free in its stubborn little parabolas. Just for an instant, Rey’s fingertip traces the shape of one curve. Then she drops it to her side. “You don’t have to _be_ her to be as good as she was. And you are.” Rose swallows, hard. That’s not true. It can’t be true. But Rey says so. Rey turns away, eyes low. “The dress looks good on you.”

* * *

They have to practice, for Rey’s _show._ The room used to be a training room for Stormtroopers, Finn tells her, which is why the floor is soft with a layer of coarse white powder that glints in the light. It’s terrain-training – it slows you down, reflects light, can be picked up and thrown at a mask’s filter, or ground into a visor to abrade it and obscure vision. Apparently the stuff is weirdly fashionable as a decorating element now, and since the Senatorial Social Committee intends this room for social events, they’ve kept it. At Rey’s request, it’s all been swept into the center of the room, in a long strip, with tiers of seating on both sides.

Rose tries not to look at Kylo Ren. His eyes look bruised and bloodshot, like he didn’t sleep. _Is it because she didn’t stay? But if I could make Rey make sounds like that – even if she didn’t stay – I’d –_ She stops, revises her thought. Firmly, she pushes away her mental picture of Rey, naked and open-mouthed with pleasure. She imagines instead how it would feel to watch Rey get out of bed and not come back. When she dares another look at him, it’s with a little more sympathy. He catches her glance. His eyes are full of such misery and bitterness she almost gasps, and they search hers desperately. For what? Sympathy? Someone to feel superior to? When he finally turns them back to Rey he looks even worse than he did before. He crosses the sandy ground as if it costs him all the energy he has.

Poe, by contrast, looks well-rested, and handsome as ever. He sits in the front row of the empty seats, half-smiling, his face soft with love as he watches Finn. R2-D2 and BB-8 have come with him, and the two older droids stand in a corner, with Poe’s astromech rushing in happy circles around them, interrupting their gossip and exclamations with other gossip and different exclamations. Rose catches snatches of C-3PO telling them about senators he’s seen, people whose names R2-D2 with harsh exclamations. Tannar Gleck among them.

She goes over her speech in her head. It’s not _the Big One,_ the call for votes; that’s tomorrow. (Assuming everything goes well, which is… well, an assumption.) But she has to lay out the plan. Make it clear what they’re asking people to vote for. “It’s vital to distinguish, at this point, between reparations, redistribution, and equalization,” she says, under her breath. “Reparations are either purely financial or solvable through financial means. But redistribution involves both economic resources and economic liabilities, and also touches on sensitive matters which it’s most appropriate for the Primary Representative of the Dispossessed to – ”

“Ready, Rose?” Rey calls. Her hair sticks to her neck. Light and power glow in her face. Rose swallows hard, and steps into her place on the shifting ground.

“Ready.”

* * *

When they step into their pod in the Senate, Rey has washed her face and slicked back her hair, but she still smells of sweat and there’s a faint grit to the sound of her step. Rose can barely breathe, she’s so nervous, and somehow, nothing could be more soothing and consoling than the casual soft grinding sound of Rey moving her weight from foot to foot and the workaday scent of her, filling Rose’s nose like the hum of a familiar song. The screen in the pod flashes a message.

_Sen. Dameron (1-Dis.): Ready?_

She has to be, doesn’t she? She taps back:

_Sen. Tico (1-O.R.): Yes. Good luck.  
Sen. Dameron (1-Dis.): Knock ‘em dead. Here we go._

And they do go. Rose breathes deeply as the pod detaches from its port and glides into the center of the chamber. She was, obviously, anticipating heckling, and when it starts before her first sentences is over, she fixes her eyes on a distant point and freezes her face and they can all go to hell. But once she starts talking about reparations, there’s so much shouting she doubts she can be heard anymore. She closes the thought and waits for silence, for the shouting to settle, but it doesn’t. It goes on and on. If anything, it seems to swell, rising from everywhere. It rings all around her _lunacy criminal ruinous moronic ignorant_ with a counterpoint of _listen but no well shut up pipe down_ and her neck hurts from how stiffly she’s been standing. She steps to the screen again. There’s no explicit _< at:all>_ option, but just as her senatorial seat is a nice chair bolted to a simple pod, the messaging function is a slick skin on an obvious protocol. She types, and the chamber is illuminated by the simultaneous flash of every screen.

_Sen. Tico (1-O.R.): You’re welcome to shout if it makes you feel better, but you DO have to listen, because the galaxy is slightly more than one standard year from a tipping point it will not withstand._

The shouting subsides for a second or two, and then roars up again. Rose ignores it.

_Sen. Tico (1-O.R.): We have survived two civil wars, but every system that’s been drained is close to running dry, and if we use impoverished worlds as dumping grounds for an army’s worth of lost and frightened people who have only ever been soldiers?  
Sen. Tico (1-O.R.): There will be a third, and none of your shouting will help you survive it._

The roar does not diminish, as her screen floods with messages, but she can tell by the lights that she’s the only one receiving them. But they’re all getting her message.

_Sen. Tico (1-O.R.): As I was saying: it’s obviously unworkable to have lump-sum monetary reparation for all exploited worlds. Aside from the difficulty of raising liquid funds, that could be really vulnerable to planetary-level corruption._

The chamber fills with light again as she sends it out. Behind her, she hears what she realizes she was listening for – the gentle, poorly-smothered snort of Rey’s laughter. Rose smiles as she types.

* * *

By the time the day’s session ends, other senators have figured out how to mass-message and administration takes the whole system offline, so they’re back to shouting. But Rose has said what she needed to say, and her proposal is officially made. She has to admit it felt good to hear the opposition met by almost as much racket as she had been. She’d listened with one ear while she’d looked mentally tallied votes, and read back through the messages to see who was agreeing with her.

She’s really ready to have dinner and put her head together with Finn, when Rey catches her by the arm with a smile and she realizes she’s been walking against the tide – everyone is going to the social chamber. _The Force show,_ they’re saying. _The Jedi showing off._

The Majordomo of the Senate gives a nice speech about what an honor it is to have such legendary figures deign to put their talents to work for the Senate’s enjoyment. He also formally welcomes General Dameron, who bows from his seat – the same he’d taken in the morning – and nods to the assembled company.

Rey and Kylo Ren step onto the strip of terrain-training powder that will serve as their stage. They bow to each other, an elaborate formal bow of a kind Rose had never seen before today, but which draws approving sounds from some seats. And that’s the cue for Rose and Finn; she steps behind Rey and he steps behind Kylo, and the show begins.

It’s hard not to be frightened, even if she knew it would happen, when the heavy black boots eat the ground between them, and Kylo leaps, far higher than a human being of his size should ever be able to, and lands with Rose between him and Rey, the red lightsaber crackling to life in his hand as he swings it straight at the center of her body. She forces herself to keep her eyes open, but she can’t help gasping – the burning weapon is so fast and so deadly and so close – and then before the blade can touch her Kylo is thrown back, skidding in a spray of white powder, and Poe yelps as his blaster is ripped from his side and into Rey’s hand; she whirls and fires on Finn, two shots, one at his heart and one at his head, and both bolts freeze dead in the air. The blaster flies out of her hand and lands at Poe's feet, spinning until his boot clamps down on it.  In her peripheral vision, Rose can see Kylo’s outstretched hand rotate, and the bolts compress, fattening into glowing spheres that hurtle towards them. One slams into blank air in front of Rey and dissipates; the other veers and comes to sit in the palm of Kylo’s glove. He lunges, then, saber in one hand, re-formed blaster shot crackling white in the other, and Rose feels herself pushed gently aside as Rey steps in front of her, both blue blades of her saberstaff alight.

The violent swirl of blue and red and white is almost too fast for Rose’s eyes to track, and there’s a fine mist that rises from their rapid, exact steps on the glistening powder as they spin and lunge and pivot, bending too far and jumping too high, the sphere of energy from the bolt flying to and fro between them. Rey extinguishes one blade and the fight changes, gets closer to the ground; they dodge less and strike more, the hum of their weapons rising into whines as they clash. Then there’s a sudden moment of stillness – blue blade caught against red, angled steeply, the ball of white blaster energy caught equidistant between their hands. Their faces are close together. Rey’s back is to Rose, but she can see Kylo’s face clearly. It startles Rose, how nakedly he lets his longing show, his adoration. There’s something unnerving about it, something fanatical.

And then, just as they’d practiced, Kylo vaults up and over Rey on the axis of their crossed blades, and Rey’s outflung hand drags Rose back across the ground as she goes on the attack, spattering the ball of energy into a hundred thousand bright sparks in Kylo’s face; she dives and rolls and stabs upward at Finn, missing by inches as Kylo lifts him up and out of her reach, and as she steps up on empty air to follow, a black-gloved hand seizes her ankle, and she flips backwards, lashing out, until their blades are crossed once more, and then –

Then each of them turns with a jerk and the audience gasps as they lunge, Rey towards Rose and Kylo towards Finn, weapons alight and aim deadly, attacking their own charges, and Rose has no time to think of or see anything, only to do as they practiced and yank her electroshock weapon from under her skirt and swing it, sparking, straight at Rey’s neck.

It’s entirely Rey’s power that brings the weapon to a perfect stop above her skin just as her saber stops beside Rose’s neck. They freeze like that, and the audience is quiet as death, and Rose knows that Finn’s blaster is under Kylo’s chin just as Kylo’s burning crossguard is poised at Finn’s temple. In the echoing silence, Rose’s own breath is thunderous in her ears and she stares at Rey, at her throat, where Rose’s weapon is, slick with sweat, and her chest in her creamy robe heaving. They’re breathing together. Perfect time.

Rose expects a wink, a sly grin. But the look on Rey’s face is wild, astonished. As if she’s seen a miracle.

Kylo’s saber turns off, and Rey seems to shake awake. Just like she had that morning in the mirror. She extinguishes her weapon, and Rose clicks off hers, and Poe is on his feet, clapping and cheering and cackling, and after a moment, much of the audience joins him, though mostly much more sedately. (The notable exception is a Wookie Senator Rose was already very attached to, just on policy grounds, who stomps his feet and howls out deafening praise.) They bow to the spectators on one side, and then the other, and then, as Rey said they should, leave quickly and silently.

They eat in Rose’s room again. It’s just hers now; all the doors are clear. So Rey will sleep in the next room, with Kylo in the room next to that, and maybe if they’re two rooms away Rose won’t hear them. Or maybe she will. She stays quiet, sneaking glances at the nape of Rey’s neck as she bends over her food. Poe does most of the talking.

 _“Brilliant,”_ he enthuses. “I mean, _I_ was terrified, and I knew what you were going to do!” (Maybe Rey doesn’t go to him every night. Maybe that’s why he looks at her like that.) “It’s not just the tricks, right, though I admit those leaps are – but I mean it’s the _control_ – ” (But he doesn’t look at her like he’s hungry; he looks at her like he’s starving. Like she’s something heldout of his reach.) “And obviously I’ve seen the trick with the blaster bolts before, the freezing them, I mean, but the other stuff was just… dazzling, just dazzling.” (Maybe he’s just too used to getting everything he wants. He wants all her time, all her attention, and when he can’t have it he thinks he’s deprived. It’s ungrateful, really; if Rey wanted Rose, even sometimes, even a little – she’d – ) “And also, I mean, it _was_ quite interesting to see who reacted how to what. Who clapped and who stayed quiet. Quite interesting, quite interesting.”

“Whoever they are,” Rey says, stern, “now they know, if they didn’t before. Even if they somehow take us out, Rose and Finn aren’t helpless.”

“It's all power.” The word is harsh in Kylo’s mouth.

Poe raises his eyebrows. “Power?”

“Any kind of power. It draws support. The Force – charm – a quick hand on a blaster – it doesn’t help run a government. But it draws people in.” He looks at Rey sidelong, ironical. “A good show of power.”

Rey turns red. “I wasn’t thinking of it – like that.”

The irony in Kylo’s expression deepens, infects his voice. “Of course not.” He drags his eyes away from her, back down to his food, and his tone turns flat. “And… Senator Tico mentioned war. Some of them might be weighing their odds. Wondering how well their worlds would fare against others.  Which side they’d want to be on.”

“So we might have more votes,” Rose says. “Maybe not from the Core Worlds, but maybe from the senators who draw their votes from worlds that feel less secure. Want to align themselves with power. Ryloth. Or Riosa. Basantha, I bet.” She’s been eating bread and sauce with her hands, but she needs her datapad. She sucks her thumb and forefinger clean, as she gets up to get it, and sees Kylo turn deep red and clench his fists. She stops, frozen with confusion. It’s bad manners, sure, to lick your fingers and get up in the middle of dinner; even she knows that. But he was so nice to her, before, when she didn’t know the etiquette –

“Oh,” says Rey, much too loudly, “you must be looking for your datapad – it’s here, I think – ” and she gets up too, riffling hurriedly through Rose’s things. The datapad is just sitting on the bed, though, within a step of Rose.

“I’ve got it,” she says, but Rey doesn’t stop opening bags and drawers until Rose is seated again, and asking Finn questions about the roster.

When they’ve finished dinner and planned out who they should press, in the morning, who they should visit and who they should message and which systems and worlds Rose should mention in her speech, Finn and Poe retire for the evening to Finn’s room. Rose expects that Kylo will leave too, but he doesn’t. Maybe he thinks Finn is safe enough with Poe. He stays seated on the floor, looking at Rey, who makes herself busy tidying up everything she mussed when she was looking – pretending to look? – for the datapad. Rose doesn’t understand it, his look, why Rey’s avoiding it, when she used to seem so calm about his staring. But she swallows down the confusion (and the pain, and the yearning – she isn’t thinking of them; there's no point), and tries to fous on tomorrow, tomorrow’s speech. Rey was so fast, searching for things, so thorough. Is that from her trade on Jakku, or is it to do with the Force, or is it both? But this agenda; if they can pass this agenda…

“Rey.” she says, trying not to sound too tremulous. Rey turns. Rose can’t quite meet her eyes. “Would it be okay if. Would you mind. If I talked about you in my speech tomorrow?”

“Why would you do that? I mean, no, I don’t mind. I don’t see why, but I don’t mind.”

“She has to inspire them,” says Kylo. His voice is low, but it changes from word to word, irony and earnestness, shifting like unsteady terrain. “You’re a very inspiring figure, scavenger.”

It’s clear from his tone that he means the word fondly, has said it fondly before, maybe even used it as a pet name. But the instant it leaves his lips, Rey turns away, biting her lip and hunching her shoulders, squeezing her eyes shut.  Before she can stop herself, Rose says sharply, “Don’t call her that.”

Kylo jerks as if she’d slapped him, and Rey says, quickly, swallowing, “It’s all right. I was. I was a scavenger.”

“No,” Rose insists. “You were a salvager. Scavengers – scavengers move trash and eat dead things. Salvagers save what can be saved.”

There’s a funny silence, then. “Save what can be saved,” Kylo says slowly, and then again, almost a whisper, “what can be saved.” And Rose isn’t stupid; she can hear at least some of what he’s hearing in those words. But she can see, too, the wild way Rey is looking at her, again, as she had when Rose’s weapon was at her throat, and then the way her eyes move to meet Kylo’s stare and shift away. How he shudders when her eyes leave him as if it were physical pain. And Rose hurts for him, and for Rey, and for herself, and she doesn’t want any of them to have to hurt anymore, so she does the only thing she can think of to do.

She yawns.

A fake yawn, wide and very pointed. “Thanks so much for cleaning up, Rey.”

“Of course,” Rey says quickly. “We should let you sleep. Or work on your speech. Thank you for letting us all have dinner with you. Goodnight, Rose.”

She could go directly to her room, through the connecting door, but she goes out into the hall instead.  Rose expects Kylo to follow, but he stays where he is, looking down, face hidden behind his hair. After a moment, as if it costs him a great effort, he gets as far as rising to his knees.

“Senator Tico.” He swallows. On his knees he’s barely shorter than she is. “Rose. Do you think.” He swallows again. Her heart hurts for him, the raw pain in every line of him. “Do you think I can be saved?”

He’s never called her by her name like that before, just _Rose._ _Senator Tico_ , or during the war, _Lt. Tico_ or once, maybe, only _Rose Tico,_ but never just  _Rose,_ as if they knew one another. She puts her hand on his shoulder, and he leans into her touch, heavy and surprising, waiting for her verdict as if it were a killing blow. “I think,” she says, “you already were.”

His head jerks up, eyes wide. They’re nice eyes, a gentle dark brown. Not unlike her own. “You didn’t notice?” she asks him.

“No." And then, after a moment: “Maybe I – I thought it would feel different.”

He’s searching her face now. She knows, whatever he’s looking for, he won’t find it. And it’s late, and she wants so badly to be alone for a moment. She pats his shoulder. “Sleep well.” _Sleep well, Ben,_ she almost says, but she doesn’t know if it would hurt him.

He stumbles out into the hall, and Rose wonders if he’ll go to Rey’s room, or to his own. But it’s not her business. Maybe she won’t be able to hear them in the ‘fresher.

The ‘fresher is mercifully loud, since it has actual water, but even though she knows there are sophisticated recapture systems in place, she feels too guilty to spend much time in it. After all, there’s only so much buffer on the recapture; if other people also used a lot of water, then there could be a filtering shortfall, and then –

Rey is sitting on the bed, in the dim light Rose left on. She’s not wearing anything but her breast band and her wrapped trousers, and her knees are tucked up under her chin. As Rose steps out, she unfolds a little, but not much. “I’m sorry,” she says, “I just thought you might… ”

“What’s wrong?” Because something must be, if Rey is curled up like that, like she’s afraid of something. Rose’s hair is dripping down her neck, but she hurries across the soft floor to sit on the bed beside Rey. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” says Rey, like she wants Rose to believe her. Rose tries, but Rey’s eyes are wet.

“Is it – Kylo?”

“I don’t know what to do,” Rey whispers. “I heard what you said to him. After I left. I’m sorry for listening, but I just heard – ” Oh. Of course. Rose wonders if Rey realizes what that implies about what Rose might have heard, through that too-thin wall. But that’s not the point now. “Do you really think so? What you said?”

“Yes.  You already saved him, Rey; I saw you do it.” Rey’s hair glitters in the dark, particles of the white powder caught in it, reflecting light.  "You saved his life and brought him back to the Light."

“But he’s still hurt. What more can I do? I know he’s in pain; what can I do?” Her voice is thin and harsh. “I’m not some – Force goddess, some avatar of the Light; if I were I might know what to do when he looks at me like that. But he thinks everything is a _judgment_ on him, everything I do or don’t do, so when he saw that I – ”

She stops abruptly. She half-twists, as if she’s thinking of getting up and leaving. Rose puts out her hand, but she stops it before it actually touches Rey, because if she touches Rey, she thinks, Rey will know. And if she knows, then Rose will just be one more person who wants more from her than she can give.

But Rey slumps back on the bed. “I thought maybe if – if you were lonely, I could stay here for a bit.”

“You can stay here. You could stay here even if I _wasn’t_ lonely.” Rose looks away. She hates how obvious her loneliness must be. But loneliness – her kind of loneliness, where the people you love go away, love other people, don’t want you – it’s nobody’s fault. It’s like a meteor shower – there’s no one to blame. You just have to clean up, and go on with life. And she has votes to sway, a speech to give tomorrow. She doesn’t look as Rey undresses. She pulls back the sheet, and tries not to wonder if she’ll wake up tomorrow with that strong, warm body close against hers.

She can’t fall asleep. She waits to hear Rey’s breathing slow, to soothe herself with Rey’s sleeping peace. But it doesn’t happen. Rey fidgets, and then Rose feels the sheet beneath them move as Rey plucks at it.

“If… I heard you and Ben talking,” she says hesitantly, and that answers Rose’s question, even before she continues, “does that mean – did you? Hear Ben or – ?”

Rose should say _I haven't heard anything_ or  _Hear what?_   “Yes. I heard you. I’m sorry. I tried not to listen, but – ”

“I’m sorry; I’m so sorry – you must think I’m – oh _no;_ I’m so sorry.” The last words come out muffled, as if Rey has buried her face in the pillow. Rose tries not to remember all the pictures that came into her head, all the ways she’d imagined Rey naked and wet and panting.

“You don’t have to apologize – you’re allowed to have – I would never stop you from... enjoying yourself.”

“Enjoying myself.” Rey snorts.

Rose rolls to face her. “Were you… not?” _You certainly sounded like you were._

“I mean, I was, but that makes it sound… ” She sighs. “Pleasant.  Simple. And it’s never simple with Ben; it’s always this tangled knot of… anger, and resentment, along with everything else and how he feels about me. He hates himself, so much, and sometimes it feels like he’s using me to punish himself, and I just… ” Rose feels the sigh, this time, faintly, against her cheek. “I enjoyed myself. But I don't know if I enjoyed being there. With him.”

They’re both silent for a moment. Rose thinks of everything she pictured. The images had been so vivid in her head, but they had been simple; her own feelings, the jealousy and the longing, had filled them up, and left no room for Rey’s confusion or Kylo’s bitterness. She murmurs – as softly as she can, so that Rey can ignore it if she wants – “You said he saw something? What did he see?”

Rey goes completely still. Rose should tell her it doesn’t matter, that she doesn’t have to tell her but – something about it, something about Rey and her silence and her stillness, makes her silent and still, too. Makes her wait.

“I showed him something I shouldn’t have. It hurt him.” Rey’s head shifts on the pillow. In the dark, Rose can’t be sure, but she thinks Rey closes her eyes. “A dream I had. About something I wanted.”

“Something that wasn’t him.” It could be a thousand things; there are so many things Rey might want. But Rose’s heart beats faster.

“No.” Rey’s voice is almost too quiet to hear. “Not him.”

And then maybe Rose is hallucinating, lying to herself more and worse than she ever has, because she thinks she feels Rey’s fingertips on the back of her hand, tracing over her skin as they’d traced her hair that morning, but now there’s no light and no mirror, no waiting day to face; now they’re naked, together, in the dark. Rose doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe. The touch slides up her wrist, stops and lingers and turns on her arm, running back down, this time into her palm, and Rose closes her hand; she was not hallucinating. Rey’s fingers are in hers, and she pulls Rey towards her; she still can’t breathe, but Rey slides to her, over her, gasping and clinging.  She feels Rey's lips on the inside of her arm, on the soft heel of her hand, and then Rey's mouth closes over Rose's thumb.

The door opens. Not the door to the hall, the connecting door. Against the sudden light from Rey’s room, Kylo is made entirely out of darkness.

“Rey,” he says. “Get up. Something is wrong.”


	4. The Best Wrench

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She’d been joking, with C-3PO, when she’d asked if she could wear it on the Senate floor. But she really did bring it, and she steps into it now: her jumpsuit, dingy with the grease of thousands of repairs and the soap of hundreds of washings, and the sound of the zipper is like a reassuring voice. Rose does not know how Rey feels about her, or what she will say tomorrow to get the votes she needs, but as she dumps everything but the tools out of her satchel and slings it over her shoulder, she feels like _herself,_ and she goes back to them with her head high and her step light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry this took so long. You may wish to back up and read the last few paragraphs of Ch. 3.

Rey rolls away from Rose instantly. Rose can’t process this. Her heart is going too fast.

“Meet me in here when you’re dressed,” Kylo says in a flat voice, and the room is black again.

Rey is out of the bed fast as wind, unspeaking, and before Rose can sit up she can hear Rey yanking her clothes on. _Rey,_ Rose wants to say – _Rey, wait. Rey, come back. Rey, are you sorry that he saw us? Or are you sorry that you touched me?_

But those are the kind of words she has been swallowing her whole life. There is something wrong, and that comes first.

He only called for Rey, but Rose puts on clothes too, reaching into her little satchel full of personal clothes for trousers and a pull-over shirt. She’s slower than Rey, fumbling a little, but Rey’s clothes need folding and wrapping and tying. Rose just tugs hers, and so she follows not too far behind Rey as she hurries into the next room, blinking at the shift from shadow to light. Kylo doesn’t seem to think it’s strange that she came with Rey. But then, he’s not really looking at either of them.

His eyes are fixed on the vents in the ceiling. He’s dragged a chair underneath it, and now he steps up. “Watch,” he says, and scrapes his fingers into the tread of his boot. His fingertips come away dusty with the glittering terrain-training powder. He reaches out to hold his hand up to the vent, and snaps his fingers. The powder falls slowly downward, unstirred by any breath of air.

“That’s why it’s so easy to hear what’s happening in the next room,” Kylo says quietly. His eyes stay fixed on the vent. “There’s an open duct and no white noise. The ventilator for this room is broken; it’s only getting air from the adjoining rooms.”

For a terrible moment, Rose thinks she understands. He’d come into this room looking for Rey, and he’d heard them, and he hadn’t been able to bear it, and he’d seized on any excuse to stop them, to pull them apart. It makes her sad, because he hurts so much, and it makes her angry, because she had been so happy before he came in, but then she sees Rey’s face, and her mind catches up to her feelings, just as Rey makes it clear.

“The maintenance alarms. Here and in the dining room. They should have gone off. They’re not just slow – ”

“ – they’re dead,” Rose finishes, stunned.

“I – did something – in my room – there was smoke. But no alarm. I think the shipwide alarm system has been disabled. I put in a call for a maintenance droid.” He points to a blinking light on the room’s terminal. “No answer yet.”

“I have a tool kit. In my luggage.” Rey is already rifling for it, her back to them, and Rose is already running back into her room.

She’d been joking, with C-3PO, when she’d asked if she could wear it on the Senate floor. But she really did bring it, and she steps into it now: her jumpsuit, dingy with the grease of thousands of repairs and the soap of hundreds of washings, and the sound of the zipper is like a reassuring voice. Rose does not know how Rey feels about her, or what she will say tomorrow to get the votes she needs, but as she dumps everything but the tools out of her satchel and slings it over her shoulder, she feels like _herself,_ and she goes back to them with her head high and her step light.

In Rey’s room, the call light for the maintenance droid is still blinking, and Rey is peeling through blueprint holos and tech diagrams while Kylo runs what tests he can without a master access password. “The data stream that routes through the central alarm intelligence is normal,” he’s saying, “so that’s not offline. It’s just disconnected from local input.”

“What about life support data? All stats normal?”

Kylo pulls the numbers. “Yes, actually.” He dismisses the numbers, and then calls them back. “Wait. They are. But they shouldn’t be. Not if maintenance alarms are down; they’ve got no failure data to use for the uncompensated stats. Those should be out of the normal range. But they’re not.”

“So they’re lies,” Rey says.

“Or else maybe the system is being fed fake failure data,” Rose suggests.

“We need to evacuate,” Kylo says. “Life support could collapse at any minute, and we wouldn’t even know until we were already dying.” He punches an emergency code into the terminal. Nothing happens.

“Naturally,” Rey says acerbically. “Wake up Poe and Finn. They can get some droids and evacuate people manually.” She points to a spot on a tech access map. “Rose and I will go in here. It’s a non-essential light system. We’ll gut it, and take the wires, then trace the alarm intelligence system until we find the disconnect, or the corruption, and fix it. Can you keep an eye on the data for us?”

“I want to come,” Kylo says.

“We need your data readings.” Rey gives him a small smile. “And don’t you know why there are height and weight limits on interior technicians?”

Kylo, swallowing whatever he wants to say, turns away towards his room and Finn’s beyond it, with a little gesture that pushes at Rey where she stands. “Go, then.”

Rey takes off, out the door and down the hall, and Rose rushes after her. “Can we get a com set somewhere? So we can get data check-ins from him?”

“He and I don’t need them,” Rey says, as if it were nothing, and Rose keeps following her, through the quiet, night-emptied halls. She wonders exactly how far in each others’ heads they are.

They come to the lighting system quickly. Rose’s bag has more tools, but Rey’s are more easily accessible, and anyway, removing cables cleanly is very much her area of expertise. She levers off the outer panel, letting it clatter, dented, at her feet, and digs in with her insulated wrench. She gets two out by the time Rose has done one, and she passes them to Rose as they go, to tuck them in her satchel. They get eight, two in each width. “Should we strip the ends as we go?”

“Better not,” Rey says. “Not until we know what we’re looking at.”

They run, boots clanging on narrow catwalks and scramble up light-weight ladders, Rose running a break-detector beam along the mauve alarm line. There’s no sign of even a kinked cable – not so much as a fraying connection. But then, Rose isn’t really expecting one. If the alarms are out in their quarters and in the dining room, that _could_ mean system-wide decay, but if there’s fake data in the life support numbers, this is sabotage.

Rey points at a technician’s box down the passage. “Can you use that port to run a data check?”

Rose hurries ahead and enters a check-string, the same one she always uses. “What does he see?”

Rey is quiet for a moment, still in a way Rose rarely sees her outside of meditation. “70-61-69-67-65.”

“Clean,” Rose says, and wishes she’d used a normal check code, because even in their desperate situation, Rey’s eyes are sad as she looks at her. _70-61-69-67-65. P-A-I-G-E._

They only check at one more port; it seems obvious that the problem is close to the heart of the ship’s central intelligence. Rose dreads what they’re going to find. They only got twelve cables out of the gutted lighting system; what if they walk in and the whole place has been cross-wired? What if it’s all wired into some kind of explosive? What if everything’s been sheered off at the socket? She’s got a digger in her bag, but –

But they stop short. They’re in the last passage, but the door won’t open. “Oh _no,”_ Rey says with dismay. “I can – I could blast it in, but I don’t know what I might hit.” She goes still as stone again. “Ben says, try 6d-69-6c-6c-69-63-65-6e-74.”

“No good,” Rose says, when this earns her nothing but a hostile red light and a warning click, but she knows where to go from here. She opens the control panel, fishing her pendant out of her clothes. She licks the length of the smelt crescent, presses it to the terminals, and mentally gives that smug asshole DJ a sarcastic bow of thanks as the wiring busts. “It’s still locked, but only mechanically, at the center latch. If you can cut through it – ”

The blade of blue light slashes up the crack in the door before her sentence is finished, and Rey pushes one smoking side back into its track with the handle.

It’s not a disaster inside. It looks completely normal – tidy bundles of cables joining other bundles, every one plugged neatly into a socket that glows green. There are no dark sockets, and no blinking red distress lights. Rose runs her detector over the alarm cables; there’s nothing. No sign of signal interruption.

“But there has to be!” Rey protests. Then her face warps with horror. “Unless – is the central intelligence corrupted?”

“No,” Rose hurries to assure her, “this ship runs on a model 6 joint core. Central corruption would send so many other things off balance the ship would stop dead. There’s no way we wouldn’t have known before now.”

“So what is it? If nothing’s cut or spliced, but the data isn’t getting through, then what’s wrong? And all your check-strings came out clean before now. So it _must_ be in here. But – I don’t see it – ”

“Maybe,” Rose says, wracking her brain. There’s something. Something she’s seen – a diagram – something – “The second issue of _Practical Mechanic_ last year – was there a – what did they call it? The slicer toy?”

Rey’s eyes widen and she lunges for the mauve cable, fine cutters springing from her belt into her hand. “A _rider!_ We have to take it out of the socket. I’ll get it unbundled; you free the plug nuts.”

The cables are fastened into their sockets with strain-reliving collars and heavy bolts, designed to ensure no shock to the ship, no matter how disastrous, will pull them loose. The alarm cable is in the middle of a bundle, barely visible in the grid of wired-in lines. As Rey works to get them the slack they’ll need to pull it free, Rose digs the tool she needs out of her bag. Finn calls “that thing that looks like a torture device.” If you look for one in a catalogue, they’ll call it a multi-adjustible tri-planar torsion device with a size 3 humanoid grip. Your average grease monkey might call it a tri-plate. Rose calls it her best wrench.

She calibrates the width using the closest socket, then adjusts the handle for the awkward angle she has to work at, and turns the torque-boost to max. She gets the wrench fitted on the alarm cable’s nearest nut, and braces herself, throwing her whole weight into turning it.

She falls, wrench in hand. The nut spins loose, landing by her, but she never hits the metal; there’s soft air beneath her, and then Rey’s hand in hers, lifting her to her feet. “It wasn’t tightened down,” Rose says, breathless. There’s a job to do, even though Rey’s hand is in hers. She lunges forward and spins another nut free with just her fingers. It takes all of fifteen seconds to get all four bolts out, the collar off, and the alarm cable unplugged.

“There it is!” Rey exclaims. The cable is four centimeters longer than it should be, extended by a narrow metal cylinder fitted between the cable and the plug. She yanks them apart, and holds the cylinder to the light. “A terminal process rider. Just like you said.”

Rose is already stripping the wires so they can reattach the cable to its plug in the original configuration. Rey tucks the rider into her belt and holds the ends together as Rose’s thread-nosed pliers get to work, twisting and pinching, and as soon as Rose drops her tool with a nod, she shoves the end back in, holding the collar down with both hands as Rose pushes the four bolts back in.

The instant all four bolts make contact with the interior conductor, a host of red blinking lights flare to life, demanding attention, almost blinding Rose as she tightens everything down properly.

“Ben says the alarms are going off!” Rey cries. “The life support data is normalizing! And his emergency code went through!” 

The knot of fear in Rose’s chest, the one she hadn’t let herself notice, loosens. She staggers back from the cables, throwing her head back with a sigh of relief, and suddenly Rey’s hand is there behind her head, Rey’s arm is around her waist, and Rey’s mouth is on hers, wide and soft and breathy. 

Rey kisses like a child seizing a handful of sweets; she is grasping and delighted, kissing and kissing again, like she won’t stop when she can still get another. And the situation is not fixed; red alarm lights are flashing, and they still might die in the next few hours. In a moment they will turn and run, and throw themselves haphazardly down the ladders they have climbed, tumble back through hatches they’ve opened, scrambling for the shuttle bay to help the evacuation. 

But for a moment, Rey is kissing her, and things couldn’t be better than they are. 

When Rey falls back a step, her eyes are on Rose’s face, as if she’s uncertain of something. Rose is light-headed with relief and being kissed, and she doesn’t know what to do other than offer Rey her best hopeful smile. _Maybe we won’t die, and maybe we can do that again. Somewhere more comfortable. And then again. And again?_ And Rey smiles back, a small shy smile, and she takes Rose’s hand as she turns to run.

* * *

Kylo is waiting for them in the hall as they jump down from the maintenance passage. The shadows under his eyes are deep, but his steps, as he paces, are rapid, energetic. He’s there beside them as soon as Rey’s feet hit the ground. “The evacuation is cancelled.”

“Is that a good idea?” Rey frowns. “The alarms are back online, but there could still be corruptions left in the life support data.”

“There might be,” Kylo says. “But we found the reason the alarms were jammed. There were poison gas cartridges in every ventilation center. Including the ones that keep the escape pods’ air systems primed. I think by now they’ve extracted them all.” He shrugs a shoulder down the hall. “General Dameron’s overseeing. He did this wing himself.” Rose glimpses the small white cartridge in his hand just before he holds it to the light for them all to see. “They were set to go off in about eight hours.” The cartridge vanishes into his fist again. “Right when Rose was scheduled to speak.”

She’s still _Rose_ to him, she notices, even as she feels sick to her stomach, imagining the ship’s halls filling with poison gas. The droids might have survived, and maybe the Jedi, but every other lifeform on the ship… 

Rey’s eyes are narrow and fierce. She fishes the rider from her belt and holds it out to Kylo. “I assume Poe’s got people trying to trace the poison. But we might get something from this. Do you know where Poe is? What com frequency?”

Kylo takes it from her and nods to the com box down the hall. “The line is ready.”

Rey stalks over to the com as Kylo returns to his room with the rider. “Poe,” she calls, “can you hear me?”

“Rey!” Poe says, “Heroine of the hour! Again! I don’t know what you did, but you saved – ”

“Rose and I just – never mind. You cancelled the evacuation – did anyone leave? On their own ship?”

“I don’t think so. Not yet. I can check the logs.”

“Check the logs. Ground everyone. No one leaves until we find out who did this.”

There’s a slight hesitation. Poe is a general; Rey has no military rank. But he doesn’t sound too troubled when he says, “All right, Madame Jedi.”

“And tell as few people as possible about the alarms.” 

Rey turns away from the com, frowning. “How will we find out, though?” Rose asks. “What are we looking for?” Rey’s frown deepens, and she doesn’t answer.

* * *

Kylo’s frowning, too, as they come into his room. He’s found R2-D2, or R2-D2’s found him, and they’re arguing, loudly; Kylo says, “It’ll corrupt your circuits,” and R2-D2 beeps back, _Do you think I can’t handle one newfangled little dirty chip?_ Rose can see why Kylo noticed the lack of alarms; the soft stuff of his bed is shredded and scorched – he must have taken his lightsaber to it, and there would definitely have been smoke. R2-D2 rolls forward aggressively, buffaloing him back against his terminal as he swears, and spits, “Fine! Suit yourself!” The droid rolls backwards with a small, smug beep, and extends an input tray. Kylo reluctantly drops in the rider. “I’m not fixing you if you freeze,” he growls, and goes to sit on his ruined bed, on top of the worst damage, as if he could hide the evidence of his temper.

There’s a brief silence in the room while R2-D2’s processors whir, and in the short gap between mortal danger and murderous conspiracies, all the horrible awkwardness of their hearts rushes in. Rose glances sidelong at Rey and sees that she is looking everywhere in the room but at Rose or Kylo. Her cheeks are red. Kylo, meanwhile, has fixed his eyes on Rose’s feet, and does not seem interested in moving them. She wonders what’s passing between them, in their heads, and for a moment she feels despair – who would settle for a little Hayes Minor mechanic with some good wrenches when you could have a lover who knows your mind like its his own?

Then she remembers the relief she’d felt, finding out that Rey wasn’t reading her thoughts. And Rey’s own words. _It’s like sleeping in a med bay._ Maybe a little Hayes Minor mechanic who stays in her own head and leaves you in peace in yours would be a… relief. She looks down at her toolbag to hide a smile. _And hey, they are pretty good wrenches._

R2-D2 makes a noise of satisfaction, and shows them a data display. “Yes, good, thank you,” Kylo mumbles, and the droid’s lights flash amusedly at him.

Rey just examines the display. “It was too much to hope for a purchase stamp of some kind, I suppose.”

“Yes,” Kylo says, looking too. “Slicer toys don’t come with manufacturer’s marks.” His head jerks, and his eyes widen. “What? Look. Look.” Rey and Rose lean in as he stabs a finger into the display. “It was scheduled to _shut itself off._ To shut itself off an hour _before_ the gas released.”

“But then… all the alarms would have come back online,” Rey protests. “Why would someone go to all the trouble of breaking into the central intelligence, unmounting the alarm cable, putting a rider on it to obscure the signal, and then _turn it off?”_

“I don’t know! But that’s what it says!” He jabs his finger into the display again, the holo flickering around his hand.

 _Go to all that trouble,_ Rose thinks. “I don’t know _why,”_ she says, slowly. “But I think I know what we should look for.” She digs into her bag and holds out her best wrench. “We’re looking for someone who has one of these.”

* * *

“It was that senator I froze; I bet you anything. Glick, or whatever he calls himself.” Rey is pacing. Poe is with security, reviewing scans from the hospitality droids to see if they can figure out who, besides Rose, came to the Senate of the Federated Republics with a tri-plate.

“Gleck. I’m not sure,” Kylo says, with more circumspection than Rose would have imagined. 

“Why not?”

“I don’t think it’s his sort of intrigue,” Kylo says. “He’s more the type to – I don’t know, bribe your friends to betray you. And not straight out; he likes deniability. This seems high-risk.”

“He might have been waiting until the last moment to slip away to his own ship.”

“Still high risk,” Kylo says. “And the timer – ”

“The _timer,”_ Rey growls. “Was it a mistake? If it’s someone who doesn’t know tech… ”

“I don’t think it was a mistake. I think it was a threat. A show of power. Making sure we know we shouldn’t think we’re safe.”

Rose shivers. The doors open, and C-3PO comes in, wide eyes radiating alarm and disapproval. “Senator Tico! You’re not dressed!”

She _is_ dressed. Just… well, she knew he didn’t approve of the jumpsuit. “I’m not due in the Senate until 1000. Are we even in session today?”

“The democratically elected government of the galaxy will not be frightened into silence and inaction,” the droid says, and the dignity in his light, precise voice makes Rose straighten up without thinking. “And it is currently 900 hours.”

 _“What!”_ Rey exclaims, covering Kylo and Rose’s slightly more colorful exclamations. Rose’s hands fly to her face, and then away – she must be smeared with who-knows-what, and her hands will only make it worse. She’ll have to jump in the ‘fresher again.

“I’ll leave you to – get ready,” Kylo says. “I should find Senator Dameron. He probably lost track of time, too.”

“What about me?” Finn says from the doorway.

“Has Poe found anything?” Rey asks, and he shakes his head, even as Rose cries, “Do you know we’re in session in an _hour?”_

Finn shrugs wearily. “Makes sense. Why should anything today be easy? Of _course_ we have to have our vote in the middle of an investigation for attempted mass assassination.”

And of course, after all the night’s desperate work and unsolved problems, that’s what floods Rose’s head with panic. The vote. She’s exhausted; she’s filthy; everyone will be talking about the gas and who did it and no one will listen and their plan will be defeated and the Outer Rim will go on slowly starving – 

“I have selected a dress appropriate for a featured address,” C-3PO says. “Senator Tico must be given time and privacy to wash and dress. All of you should wash and… make yourselves presentable. _Really.”_ Arms outspread, he herds Kylo and Finn from the room. Kylo stalks ahead; Finn, smiling, allows himself to be herded.

Back in her ‘fresher for the second time in ten hours, Rose goes over her speech in her head. They won’t care, not today. Not after all this. She has to make them listen. She has to.

When she gets, Rey is on the edge of the bed again. Rose feels dizzy for a moment, as if she’s about to live the whole night again, and remembering Rey’s mouth, she’s almost eager for it. But Rey is dressed in richer creams and darker browns than she had been last night, her jacket made of something fine and heavy.

“I didn’t want to embarrass you,” she says, shyly. “It’s your big speech.”

“You look amazing, but you always look amazing,” Rose says, truthfully. Rey _blushes,_ and Rose shivers, because she can make Rey blush, and Rose is very used to responsibility, but being able to make Rey blush is _power._ And she is not used to power.

C-3PO has picked out a long, narrow dress, dark midnight blue with narrow silver piping, fastened closely at her neck and across her breast. There’s a cape that goes over it, Islomat gauze woven with something else; it’s silver and not quite opaque. In the mirror, she observes the harmony of the blue and silver with Rey’s cream and brown, and wonders if C-3PO planned it. “We go together,” she says softly.

She’s still too afraid to just hold out her hand for Rey’s. Despite the kiss, despite the blush, despite everything, part of her still thinks Rey might shy away like a startled fathier if Rose moves too boldly. So she just holds her breath and lets her fingers tentatively unfold from beneath her cape. But the instant she does, Rey’s hand is in hers, warm and strong.

“We do,” she says, and they stand there for a moment, just _together;_ just one moment not looking at or thinking of anything but each other. 

Then Rey shakes her head. “We can’t forget!” she chides, squeezing Rose’s hand, and runs to one of the drawers in the wall. She lifts out the head ornament, the master metalworker’s piece, curved and shining, and her fingers, as she helps Rose fasten it to her head and tuck her hair up neatly, are dextrous, but they linger in Rose’s hair, caressing. Rose looks at the familiar silver shape, and feels its echo press against her breastbone beneath her dress. _Paige will always be with me. And now Rey is with me too._

* * *

He washes, and shaves, but he has no finer clothes to change into, just the same worn dark quilting. His skin is too pale to let him fade entirely into the shadows, but if he could, he would. The Dark would never swallow him, no matter how badly he wanted it, how hard he tried. And the Light won’t have him. Can’t the Force have mercy on him and just let him disappear into the twilight?

_Do you think I can be saved?_

He tries not to think of Rose and Rey together, tries not to imagine their happiness, or Rose’s small fingers in Rey’s mouth and his own looming shadow falling over both of them.

_I think you already were._

He clips his saber to his belt, feels the living crystal inside it, cracked and bleeding. But ready. Burning when it’s needed.

_I thought it would feel different._

* * *

Rose is waiting in the hall for Finn and Kylo, trying to do something other than just gaze at Rey like an idiot, when Poe rounds the corner at a clip. “Got good news and bad news,” he says as he joins them. “Good news is, we found one of those wrenches in someone’s bag. Bad news is, we found another one in someone else’s rooms.”

“Who are they?” Rey asks. Down the hall, Finn’s door opens and he and Kylo come out. Finn’s long coat is a fine, pale pearl-grey with a faint blue sheen. Kylo follows him with silent steps.

“We have two suspects,” Poe tells his husband and his bodyguard as they approach. “One is named Bexon Tonday. She’s the assistant to a Secondary Representative from the Core, Senator Lesfald. The other is a Senator himself. Asper Cayrl. He’s a Secondary Representative from the Inner Rim.”

“Either one might have wanted to stop Rose from speaking.” Kylo says.

“Do either of them have a reason to have one?” Rose isn’t sure she has a reason to have one herself, but she imagines Security will have asked.

“Tonday says she was hired in part for her mechanical skills.”

“That sounds suspicious,” Rey says. “And it would be like a Core senator to send someone else to do their dirty work.”

“The other one says he started out as an industrial mechanic. He brought his tool kit for sentimental reasons. I’m not sure I believe him.”

“I didn’t really have a good reason to bring my tools, either” Rose says. “But we need to talk to them. Separately. And we have to delay the vote somehow. If that senator is responsible for this, we can’t let him vote.”

“I’m not sure they’ll want to delay,” Finn says. “They want it to be business as usual.”

“But they can’t let someone who’s conspiring against the senate have a vote. And we can’t keep them away if we don’t know that they’re guilty.”

“How are we supposed to know who’s guilty?” Poe asks.

“I’ll show you. But Finn, we have to make them wait. And I have to give my speech.”

“Finn might delay them,” Kylo says. “A long speech. Or preventing a quorum. If Finn puts the case before the Senate, he can ask them to walk out. If enough of them walk out, it’ll halt things.”

Finn looks doubtful. Rose puts her hand on his arm. “Tell them you’re doing it for Cayrl and Lesfald’s sake. For the sake of the Inner Rim and the Core receiving proper representation. If you hold the vote before there’s even reasonable suspicion, then the senators might feel coerced. Once they’re cleared, they’ll be able to vote without fear.”

“All right,” sighs Finn. He rubs his eyes wearily. “Here goes.”

Kylo is looking at Rose strangely. He reaches out, with a small, shy gesture, and she expects a movement in the Force, but then he steps forward and uses his hands, big fingers delicately arranging her garment on her shoulders. When he’s done, it’s half pulled back over one shoulder, emphasizing the asymmetry of her dress, adding to the drama of the outfit. She looks up into his eyes. They are sad, but steady. “You really do remind me of my mother,” he murmurs.


	5. Salvation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No point drawing it out. She doesn’t know how long Finn can make the senate wait. She holds out her hyper-compass, and points to the nut and bolt holding the two blades together. “General Dameron says there was a tri-plane in your things. Can you use it on this?”
> 
> He must have known something like this was coming, if Poe questioned him about the tool. “Of course.” She holds it out further towards him, inviting him to demonstrate. He takes the hyper-compass with a shrug, and adjusts the width of the tri-plane’s grip with an easy motion of his hand, setting the torque low with a flick of his thumb. The nut spins off easily, rattling on the floor. “Is that all you needed?”

Bexon Tonday, a tall, thin human woman with a lacquered look and frightened eyes, passes Rose’s test, and Rose tries not to look as rattled as she feels. She’d tried her first because she thought she’d fail, and Rose could run back to the senate with answers. And Rey was right – it made more sense that a Core senator like Lesfald would hire someone else to do his dirty work than that he’d want an assistant with mechanical skills.

Maybe Poe can sense the direction of her thoughts. He looks grim. _What if Cayrl passes too? What if I’m wrong, and they both pass, and what I though was a clue was just an accident, and I’ve got no way to solve this at all?_

She has to try. Rey’s hand rests on her arm for a moment.

Senator Asper Caryl of the Inner Rim looks angry, and who can blame him? But he tries to smooth his face down when Rose comes in. He smooths his sand-brown hair, too, with a hand that doesn’t look to soft to hold a tool.

“How can I help you, General? Senator? Madame Jedi?”

No point drawing it out. She doesn’t know how long Finn can make the senate wait. She holds out her hyper-compass, and points to the nut and bolt holding the two blades together. “General Dameron says there was a tri-plane in your things. Can you use it on this?”

He must have known something like this was coming, if Poe questioned him about the tool. “Of course.” She holds it out further towards him, inviting him to demonstrate. He takes the hyper-compass with a shrug, and adjusts the width of the tri-plane’s grip with an easy motion of his hand, setting the torque low with a flick of his thumb. The nut spins off easily, rattling on the floor. “Is that all you needed?”

Rose picks up the fallen nut, swallowing hard. He’s careless, but if he was a high-ranking mechanic, he might not have had to care; he might have had assistants to pick up his hardware. He knew to adjust the torque setting; if he’d left it high it would have ripped itself out of his hand. But she holds the picture of the alarm in her mind as she drops the nut loosely back on the bolt.

“Can you put it back together?”

“Naturally,” he says, flipping the wrench, end over end, to catch it again, and she knows, she knows even before she sees him try to use the reversed motion of his wrist to fasten it down. She takes the tool out of his hand, and the hyper-compass. She throws the tri-plane into reverse, and lets the stored recoil tighten the nut with only the lightest flick of her hand. Cayrl’s eyes widen, just a little. She sees him swallow.

“Whoever gave you the tri-plane didn’t show you that, did they? Because they thought no one would realize anything was wrong until the alarms would come back online, and the poison would be found.” Poe is looking at Cayrl, but Rey is staring at her. She tries to keep her tone calm, senatorial, but she feels like there’s poison in her throat. She wants to spit it at him. “And the ship would be evacuated, and no one would ever look at the alarm cable, because why should they, if it worked? So it wouldn’t matter. That you didn’t know enough about the wrench they gave you to know the basic way mechanics use it.”

Cayrl’s eyes are closed. He doesn’t dispute, or deny. He doesn’t reply at all. Rose wants to shake him by the collar; she wants to do worse than that. Her fingers are so tight on her wrench they hurt. _”Why?”_ she hisses. Rey is watching, and Rey must expect better of her; Rey would want her to be kind to him, but Rose can’t keep the venom out of her voice, and she stops trying. “Why would you do that; why would you scare the Senate out of the vote like that? Does the Inner Rim benefit _so much_ from the way things are that you couldn’t even tolerate our plan coming to a _vote?”_

“Fuck the _Inner Rim.”_ The Secondary Representative’s voice is bitter. “The Inner Rim, as a whole, will be fine. All those other planets you want to tax and dump stormtroopers on? They’ll be fine. Whether you win or lose, those worlds will all be just fine. But not mine.” His eyes open. They’re red-rimmed, blue irises swallowing their black centers. “Not Rabune.”

She’s never even heard of it, and it must show on her face. He laughs, a hoarse, sour sound like a cough. “Rabune will starve whether or not your plan passes. We don’t fit into your notion of the galaxy, Inner and Outer, the rich worlds and the poor. Wealth comes to Rabune, but it never stays. The Old Empire made sure of that. We’re arms factories, and nothing _but_ arms factories. We have no natural resources – only workers. Workers _you_ won’t pay, because the Empire built Rabune to build only one thing.”

Rose opens her mouth, but he pre-empts her. There’s poison in his voice to more than match hers. “You’re going to say something about retraining. Repurposing. You don’t understand the _scale.”_ He gestures at the wrench Rose holds. “Nobody gave that to me; it’s mine. You know why I can’t use it in reverse? I worked in the factories for six years. And the processes are so refined, so exact, that I haven’t in six years as an industrial mechanic _needed_ to learn to use it that way. We don’t know how things work. We know what to do, to build the weaponry as quickly as possible.” His hands fly back and forth in the air, repeating the single gesture of unscrewing something at the level of his eyes. “There’s only one way Rabune survives.” He drops his hands and shows them his open palms. “War.”

Rey’s voice is blank with horror. “You wanted to restart the war?”

“No one has to fight,” Cayrl says, hopelessly. “You just have to – ”

“ – be afraid,” Rose finishes, half-strangled. She swallows. It takes effort. “You should – you shouldn’t be voting with the Inner Rim. Rabune shouldn’t be. You’re Finn Dameron’s constituents. You’re the Dispossessed.”

Cayrl’s face draws into a snarl. “The Dispossessed are brainwashed. They don’t know who they are or where they’re from. You can shuffle them like a pack of cards and send them anywhere you please. You can’t _resettle_ us. We’ve built our lives around those factories. We’re dug into them like plants. Rabune belongs on Rabune.”

Poe’s voice is tight with anger. “You ‘just’ wanted us scared, but you could have started another war, a real war. You know that right? Because you scheduled this for the middle of Rose’s speech. Do you know how much of the Outer Rim is poised on – ”

“Rose – ” Rey breaks in. “Ben says Finn can’t hold them anymore. They’re going to open the session. We have to go.”

There’s no ease in the strain in Poe’s face as he cracks a pair of binders open and holds them out for Asper Cayrl’s hands.

“Let him come,” Rose says, impulsively. Rey, Poe, and Cayrl all stare at her.

“Rose, he threatened the Senate. We can’t let him vote,” Poe says. “You said so yourself.”

“Let him vote in binders. Or keep him here and let him vote by proxy. But we can’t take the vote away from Rabune, can we? From the people who elected him?”

Senator Cayrl puts his hands into the binders. As Poe snaps them closed over his wrists, he says, “I told you. It doesn’t matter to us. Rabune starves either way. You can tell them: the fourteenth Secondary Representative of the Inner Rim abstains.”

* * *

Rose is out of breath as she steps into her pod in the Senate chamber. Everyone is staring, and there’s a blinking message from Finn: _As soon as you’re ready._

She keys in her request to address the Senate, and tries to steady herself.

Her speech had been running through her head in broken fragments as she’d raced through the halls behind Rey. It’s all true, all of it, but as her pod glides out, and she hears Rey shifting restlessly behind her, it’s not sufficient.

“We saved you,” is what she blurts out. Her tone is blunt, almost accusing. Hearing herself, she starts to pull back, to temper it. Then she stops. Instead, she stares around the chamber, watching the Representatives shifting and murmuring and scowling and looking uncertain. And Rose decides that she will not pull back and she will not soften it, because she’s _right._

“I don’t know what you’ve heard. But last night, early this morning, this ship had compromised alarms and ventilators packed with poison gas. But you were saved. And you could say, if you wanted, that you were saved by two Jedi and a Senator. But it would also be true to say that you were saved by a salvager from the Western Reaches, one of the Dispossessed, and a mine laborer from Hayes Minor.”

There is a shift in the chamber, in-drawn breaths and sighs and small exclamations, perhaps to hear Rose admit she worked in a mine, perhaps to hear her call the Jedi beside her just a salvager, perhaps to hear Kylo named as one of Finn’s constituents.

The shift becomes a grumble, and Rose stomps her foot. The pod doesn’t tremble; it’s better made than she thought. “I’m _not_ saying you ought to vote for my proposal because I saved you. You don’t owe me anything. Anything at all. I’ve been a mine laborer, but I was a mechanic for the Resistance; repairing busted ships was my _job._ I did my job.”

She shouldn’t have stomped her foot. _You really do remind me of my mother,_ he’d said. She tries to remember the footage she’s seen of General Organa in the Senate, and steps to the edge of her pod, to where she knows the camera is. There’s a faint pressure at her forehead, and she lifts her head. The General wore a crown of Alderaanian braids; Rose keeps her neck straight and lets everyone see the Otomok crescent Rey fastened on her hair. “I know there are always people who don’t care if the war comes again, because they think they can win it. But you are saved today because a salvager and a mine worker found themselves in the halls of the Galactic Senate. Today, you’re saved. If wealth keeps flowing in to the center of the galaxy from its edges, the next time – where will you be? Who will be here to help you?” She looks out at them all; in her mind she can see the cool light of the Senate on the silver of her cape and in her hair, as she slowly turns her head.

“There are people in the galaxy who do desperate things – who fill the Senate’s ventilators with poison gas, start galactic wars – because they think their problems have no other solution, that they’re voiceless and alone. But if you change things. If you make it possible for the people who have worked _for_ you for centuries to work _with_ you. Then there will be people in these halls who can solve problems no one here may even know we have. So I’m asking you to vote for our proposal out of self-interest. Cast your vote.” She swallows. Puts all the steel she has into her voice. “Save yourselves.”

She throws the switch to return her pod to its port, and tries not to collapse into her chair. Rey is there for her; Rey’s strong hands, supporting her. There’s noise rising around them, cheers and sighs and argument, and Rose wants to cry. Rey’s eyes are fixed on hers, light and inquiring. “I don’t want to hear it,” Rose whispers, trying not to cry. “I just want it to be over.”

“It’s not over,” Rey says gently. “It’s never over.” But a silence descends, and she knows, without even looking to see if other Senators’ mouths are still moving, that it’s a personal silence, a gift to her from Rey. She squeezes her thanks with her fingers, and Rey holds on to her tightly. That steady pressure is something she needed, without realizing she did. Whatever happens, Rey is here.

If she fails – if the vote fails, what can she do? Something smaller. Little bandages on a gaping wound. A handful of lives made more tolerable. But there’ll be war again. She wasn’t wrong about that. For a moment, she’s overcome with despair, and then Rey’s grip tightens on her. _Whatever happens, Rey is here._

* * *

Rey sits beside Rose, holding the silence around them as the votes mount. As she watches the tide of color in Rose’s cheeks, she reaches out.

**Ben?**

There’s no answer. She wonders if he’s going to cut himself off from her. She was afraid he might. He doesn’t do things by halves, and there’s a cold fear in her that he thinks _the Light_ is rejecting him, sending him away, and that he’ll do something drastic. She feels, gingerly – he’s still _there,_ at least. 

But he’s still silent. Anxiety makes her volatile. _Does he want me to apologize? I’m not going to apologize for having feelings._ She gathers herself to tell him so, trying to keep her temper down, when she hears him.

**Do you think she’s right? Am I one of the Dispossessed?**

Rey considers, but he continues. **I wasn’t stolen. I wasn’t brainwashed or indoctrinated. Everything I did, I did to myself.**

 **But you changed,** Rey insists. It’s an old argument, but she’ll argue it again if she has to. Beside her, Rose’s eyes are fixed on the numbers, _Yes_ winning out, then _No_ overtaking it. _Yes_ is climbing, but _No_ is still ahead. **You gave up everything you had to fight the First Order.**

 **I had nothing to give up. I had nothing to risk. Not until you –** He breaks off. After a moment he says, **Is that why I’m one of them? Because they have nothing, and neither do I?**

 **No one has nothing,** Rey tells him. Rose’s knuckles are white. Almost all the votes are tallied. **You have more than you know.**

 **You sound like my uncle,** Ben says, and she almost laughs. But his voice in her head is wracked with anguish, and the laugh dies on her lips. **Are you going to tell me I shouldn’t give up hope, Rey? Could you look me in the eyes and tell me that?**

Rey turns her head and looks at Rose’s face, her big dark eyes fixed on the numbers as they rise. **There are so many things to hope for in this world, Ben. I know that you’re good; I know that you belong to the Light, and I hoped you would know it too. I still hope so.**

The last votes register. By sixty-three votes, _Yes_ carries the Senate. Rose’s face is streaked with tears, and something prompts Rey to open her mind to Ben, then, to show him what she sees, what she hears and feels as Senator Tico steps to where the cameras can see her best, and, still weeping, bows gracefully in thanks. She hides none of her thoughts. **She is so beautiful. This moment is so beautiful. So many things will be better now. Us, too, I think.** And she feels the answering surge of emotion in him, that same old despair, but so many other things too, and after a moment:

**Maybe. I hope so.**

* * *

Rose is a little shocked by how easily she’s able to be gracious in victory. It isn’t that she thought she wouldn’t be, exactly – she had never imagined the moment. Had she ever really thought they might win? But they have. And when her mind and her heart are so full of joy, of ideas of the food people will get, of the education, and the homes, and the medicine – it’s not really much of a problem to bow deeply to the Primary Representative of the Core when he comes, icy-faced to congratulate her, to tell him that she appreciates his courtesy. Everything is good; everything is warm and easy. 

Probably the wine the droids are pouring so generously doesn’t hurt, either. The half of the Senate – _less_ than half, she reminds herself triumphantly – who voted against her measure are drinking to console themselves, and the people who supported her from the start are drinking to celebrate, and the people who reluctantly joined in are drinking to quiet their uncertainties, so there’s quite a lot flowing. And Rose is not of a size to metabolize the alcohol quite as quickly as some of them; she feels warm and she’s sure her cheeks are very red.

And she’s holding Rey’s hand in front of everybody and if anybody finds it curious, well, they can just be curious, then.

But she’s not so high on alcohol and hand-holding that she forgets there are important things she still needs to do. She spots Poe across the room, holding decorously to Finn’s arm and smiling a small, benevolent smile. She drags Rey across the room to them, and he drops Finn’s arm so she and his husband can hug one another and cry a little over their triumph.

“We did it,” she whispers tearily into the embroidery of Finn’s coat, trying not to spill her wine down his back. “We really won.”

“We did,” he agrees, rocking her a little in the hug. “Careful with that thing on your head – you’re gonna take my eye out.”

Her free hand flies up; she’s getting unsteady and she can’t go stumbling around this reception with a piece of sharp precious metal on her head. If it doesn’t hurt someone, it’ll get bent, and C-3PO was so nice to get it for her. She can’t find the clasp with her blind fumbling, though, and Rey has to help her. So she stands there, and it’s so ridiculous, that she’s standing in this glittering room in this lovely dress, victorious, with a glass of wine in her hand and a gorgeous Jedi knight helping her take her ornaments off; it’s so very much never how she thought her life would be, and yet it is her life. She almost laughs, and Rey, seeing that she wants to laugh, smiles at her, and Rose wants to kiss her so, so badly. But she didn’t come over here to kiss Rey, as much as she wants to.

“Cayrl’s all right?” she asks Poe. “He’s in a… brig, or something?”

Poe’s smile hardens off his face. “Yes. He confessed in front of witnesses, Rose; we couldn’t let him go.”

“I know. Just… could you tell him that we won. And that I’ll ask the Senate if we can have a special representative from Rabune. I don’t know if we can, and I don’t know if it’ll help his planet, and I’m sure he’ll think it won’t. But. Just tell him I’m trying, okay?”

She can tell from his expression that he thinks she’s too soft on Cayrl, but she knows he understands about Rabune. He nods. “Sure. I’ll tell him.”

“Thank you.” It doesn’t solve it. But Rey’s arm slips around her waist, and she leans into her, remembering what she said and how right she was: it’s never over. And for tonight, it’s enough. For the last twenty-four hours, she’s done enough.

* * *

Rose steps sideways without looking and crashes into him. She makes a small squeaking noise, but she doesn’t look frightened as she looks up into his face. And she doesn’t make any move to step out of the circle of Rey’s arm. Rey never touched him like that in public, so casual and fond; not once. Anger boils up in him, and resentment. He feels it boiling as he looks down into Rose’s face, and he wonders for an instant if he’s going to do violence; if he’s so weak that he’d let the Dark in now. But his attention is arrested. Rey smiles at him.

“I’m sorry!” Rose says. “I didn’t see you.” He’s not looking at her. Rey looks so – bright. So light.

“It’s the clothes,” he says, almost absently. “People mistake me for my own shadow.”

Rose giggles, and Rey laughs too, and like a man waking up, Ben startles. He can’t for the life of him remember how old he was the last time he made a woman laugh. Like this, that is, like he’s clever, not like he’s ridiculous. He has a memory, a very old memory, of saying something, in his best imitation of his mother’s arch tone. Of Amilyn and his mother turning to him, laughing, looking impressed. How proud he felt. _My one-meter wit,_ his mother said, fondly, and he protested that he was _much_ taller than a meter, and Amilyn, who always called herself his aunt, though she was no relation, told Leia very seriously that he was right.

He looks at Rey, again, at the smile she turns on him, which isn’t his, will never be his, but still feels like a small, hopeful offering to him. He turns to Senator Dameron. “Senator – ”

“You know you can call me Finn, right?”

Blinking, he looks at his charge, who looks a little drunk, but serious. He swallows. “Do you want me to call you that?”

“I heard you call Rose Rose,” Finn says. “And you call Rey Rey. I’m gonna feel left out if you keep calling me Senator Dameron.”

“…Finn, then.” Finn smiles, and his bodyguard doesn’t know quite where to look. “Do you feel – can I leave you with your husband and Rey for a little while?”

“Of course.” Finn slings his arm around Poe, and gestures expansively. “Get yourself some wine. Have a time. I’ll be fine.”

He keeps a tendril of his awareness tied to Finn in the Force, and leaves them. As he wanders the room, looking for the person he wants to talk to, he thinks maybe he _should_ get some wine. He isn’t really looking forward to this. But when he was a boy he tried to be his father’s heir, and his mother’s, and his uncle’s. Then of course his grandfather’s. And it was never brought him anything but ruin and grief. But if Rose can set her chin and walk into the Senate with Leia’s determination to change the world, and if Rey can talk about hope with Luke’s knowing familiarity, both of them heirs to people nowhere near their bloodline – 

He stops, and, being careful where he puts his feet, he bows. Tannar Gleck looks at him suspiciously. “Good evening,” the Senator says, unpleasantly, conspicuously avoiding any form of address.

“Senator. I owe you an apology.” It sticks in his throat. He doesn’t like it. But he can do it. Bowing again slightly, he reaches for a formula drilled into him as a child. “I apologize for my rude conduct; it was a – a shameful lapse, and I will strive not to repeat it. I request your pardon.”

When he straightens, Gleck is looking at him suspiciously, but with less hostility. “Thank you for your apology… young man. I suppose it’s nice to hear the old courtesies again; I was afraid they were lost in this day and age.”

“Thank you, Senator.” He knows that was meant as a dig at Rose and Finn, at Rey, and he wrestles silently for a moment, against his anger. _You belong to the Light,_ he tells himself, and tries to believe it. “Senator, I remember my mother speaking of you. She said you had an… interest in history.” She said he was a fossil-worshipper who always thought yesterday was by definition better than today, but Gleck doesn’t need to know that. “I was wondering if you might be willing to share some of your expertise with me.”

The Senator’s look is still supercilious, but he’s clearly trying for affability. “It would be my pleasure to assist Princess Leia’s son. What were you interested in? Alderaan?”

“Not – not at present.” He clears his throat. “I was wondering if you could recommend any sources on the life of General Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

* * *

Rose has had more to drink than she should have. She’s about to get sloppy, or weepy, or something else disgraceful. She can tell by the tolerant way Rey is looking at her. But she couldn’t help it – she’s nervous. Rey is going to come back to her room with her. She keeps remembering all those sounds she heard through the wall, and she’s afraid she’ll never be able to coax sounds like that out of Rey, but remembering them makes her want so badly to try. And she’s going to sweat through this beautiful dress thinking about it.

Before, she was glad to know that Rey couldn’t read her mind, but it would be almost nice right now, if it would save her from having to say what she wants to out loud. _Rey, let’s leave so I can kiss you. Let’s leave so I can look at your breasts without pretending I’m not. Let’s leave. Put your fingers in my mouth again._ She can’t say it, for some reason, even in the simplest and most innocent way, and so she does what seems to her, probably because of the wine, to be the simplest thing: she leans against Rey, and butts her gently with head, like a domesticated cublet. And Rey, laughing, goes.

As they move through the corridors they lean against one another, tangle their fingers together, speed up and slow down for no reason. Rey deliberately steers them into a wall; when they crash, she kisses Rose again, in her pleased and greedy way. Then she pushes off and heads for Rose’s room again, pulling the Primary Representative of the Outer Rim after her.

Rey kisses them through the door. Rose feels, with Rey’s hands on her hips, kneading gentle, and Rey’s mouth on hers again and again, like she is being raided, riffled through. It’s thrilling; it makes her blood warm. Search me over. Take anything you want. Take everything. She puts her arms around Rey, lets them rest on her shoulder blades, feeling the strong muscles of Rey’s back work beneath her fingers, and lets her mouth slip away from Rey’s, so she can put it to the pulse below Rey’s ear, to the angle of Rey’s neck inside her jacket. She traces the half-moon hollow at the base of Rey’s throat with her lips, and again with her tongue. Every gasp, every stuttering breath, is a sweet reward.

In the dark room, her fingers find the tie of Rey’s jacket, and Rey twists and spins, helping Rose unwrap her. Rose presses her back against the wall, and stoops just a little to tease the hardening points of Rey’s breasts with the tip of her tongue. With the arch of her thumb and forefinger fitted just beneath each breast, she strokes each nipple with just the edge of her stiffened tongue, and Rey’s head thumps back against the wall, and a low moan escapes her. Rose feels feverish with pride and desire.

Then Rey’s hands are at her neck, plucking at the clasp of her cape, at the fastening of her dress, and pressing her towards the bed. Rose’s heart accelerates and her throat tightens. Maybe Rey can feel it; Rose can feel her breath warm on her ear as she whispers, “Please, Rose; please let me.”

Rose wants to pull Rey down on the bed and take off her pants and underwear; she wants to leave bites on Rey’s skin and stroke Rey with her fingers and tongue and drown in Rey’s moans. But her cape, undone, slides down her body, and Rey’s hands are on hers, and she lets herself be pushed backwards on the covers, arms above her head, the weight of a Jedi held lightly above her.

* * *

Rey remembers where the fastenings of Rose’s dress are; she’d watched Rose do them up, one by one, that morning. She feels them slip open, one after the other, under her fingers, across Rose’s shoulder, and the top of her breast, and down her side. She peels away the pretty fabric, and slips Rose’s breast band up and off her. Rose feels silky; Rey drops her face and lets her nose skim Rose’s skin to relish the smoky, milky smell of her. She doesn’t even choose to open her mouth and let her tongue trace, too; it just happens. The quiet sound of Rose swallowing, hard, makes her smile and nuzzle against the softness of Rose’s breast.

She drags her fingers down Rose’s arms, savoring the feeling of her. Rose feels like something expensive, something Rey would glimpse behind a closing door on Jakku, vivid and inviting, and never be allowed to touch. But Rose will let her touch. Let her mouth greedily at the giving flesh of her breasts and toy with the crinkling blossoms of her nipples. Let her shift herself between Rose’s legs, nestling into her. Rose makes small, caught noises, and Rey’s mouth waters.

She kisses Rose’s mouth again – it’s small and eager; Rey could eat it in a single bite. She runs her fingers through Rose’s blue-black hair, over the wet lines she’s left on Rose’s breasts, her whole hands flat against Rose’s sides, down her thighs, while Rose squirms beneath her. Rey slides down, because Rose is still wearing underwear and Rey is still wearing underwear _and_ pants. She takes care of her own clothes easily enough, yanking and kicking, but with Rose’s she takes time; she lets her fingers drift up Rose’s legs until they brush against the hem of the plain pale things the Senator wears under her dresses, under her jumpsuit. Her thumbs circle, slip under and up. Rose’s hips shift underneath her hands, a slow sensuous roll, and arch up to let Rey pull the last scrap of cloth off her.

And here is where the luxury of Rose is deepest, where she smells heady and rich, where she is fur and cream. Rey touches her gently, with her fingertips, and Rose jumps as if she’d closed a circuit. She strokes the black hair back, and Rose’s knees close in tightly around her. She strokes the slick lips apart, and Rose gasps and whimpers, “Yes, please, Rey.” Rey sucks on her own fingers and slides one delicately in where Rose is wettest, and Rose arches; Rey adds a second finger and rubs, carefully, looking for the spot she knows from her own body. She knows it when she finds it, both from the way it feels against the pads of her fingers and from the sweet throbbing moan that comes from Rose: _“Please,_ Rey; _please.”_

Rey’s not unfamiliar with power, but she’s not above toying with it, either. She slows her rubbing fingers a little, and lowers her head slowly, letting Rose feel her breath for a long moment before she lets her feel her tongue, a long, hard lick, slow and savoring. Rose makes a sound like a sob, and her hands grasp at Rey’s shoulders, slick with sweat. She gives them a feather-soft push with the Force – Rose could resist it easily, but she gasps and lets her hands be carried back beside her head. Without her hands, she closes her knees even tighter around Rey, feet digging into the bed, and Rey wraps her free hand around the outside of her leg, to keep her close.

* * *

For a little while Rose can’t do anything but gasp and sigh. She’s held so safely, and Rey kisses and licks her like she _wants_ her; she can’t do anything but be carried on the current of bliss. But out of the wide flow of her pleasure, she starts to feel something else, that Rey is drawing out of her with deliberate, playful patience. And maybe Rey can feel her feeling it; the fingers that have been sitting lightly on her thigh are clamping down; the tension which is bending Rose’s body is tangible in Rey’s shoulders, in the gentle press of the Force on her hands.

And then there is a light and unfamiliar tension _inside Rose’s head_ and when she gives way to it in surprise, Rey’s voice is in her head, light and shy. **Talk to me, Rose?**

“Please,” Rose says, which is stupid, because that’s all she’s been saying. But what else is there to say? “Please Rey. It feels so good; you don’t even know; you feel so – please – you’re gonna make come; I’m gonna – I can’t – oh, _Rey.”_ And Rey is there, holding onto her tightly, with a warm hand, and speaking in her mind with a warm voice, **Rose – yes – that’s good; is that good?** and Rose can’t talk, only whine and whimper. But Rey must understand because she stays with her, mouth thirsty and urgent, and her voice in Rose’s head is a half-drunk gasp: **Like water. In the desert. All mine.**

It doesn’t make sense, but nothing makes sense; she’s overcome with bewildering pleasure, stunned and drowning. And just when she can’t take it anymore, Rey lifts her mouth with a gasp. Rose is gasping, too, her whole body trembling. Her muscles feel like water, anyway, but she can feel now that Rey is slipping out of her mind, slipping away, and Rose has things she still _wants_ so badly.

“Please,” she says again, helplessly, and pulls at Rey’s shoulders, trying to pull her up. If she can’t make Rey make sounds like the ones she heard before – Rey should know, Rey should know now; it’s only fair.

Rey comes in the direction Rose is pulling her, but only as far as Rose’s breasts, where she drops her head and snuggles down with a satisfied groan. Her nose rubs softly, and her voice tingles in Rose’s skin. “Tired.”

“But – ” Rose shifts, and Rey raises her head, eyes questioning under drooping lids. “But you didn’t – I didn’t make you come.”

“Tomorrow,” Rey says, and puts her head back down with a little grunt. If she’s exhausted, Rose doesn’t want to bother her, but she doesn’t want – what if she – will Rey – 

Rey lifts her head again, frowning. “What’s wrong? Your heart’s going like mad.”

“I just – ” Rose breathes deeply, tries to force her pulse to slow. “I don’t want to be unfair to you.”

Rey pushes herself up a little, her arms lying close along the edges of Rose’s body. “You’re welcome to make it up to me tomorrow, I told you.”

“But what if I – I’m sorry, Rey; I didn’t mean to listen, but – but what if I can’t – if I’m not as good as he is? If I can’t do that for you?”

Rey shrugs. “I wouldn’t worry. It’s just repetitive motion, after all.” Rose doesn’t think it’s _quite_ that simple, and it must show on her face, because Rey rolls her eyes, just a little, and her smile shines briefly in the dark. “Rose. I have faith in your abilities as a skilled manual laborer.”

“Right,” Rose says automatically. Because she is that. Senator and mechanic. Both at once. Primary Representative of the Outer Rim, and a little mechanic with a jumpsuit and a bag full of tools. Just as Rey is the hero of the wars, the galaxy’s strongest Force-user, and a sleepy-eyed woman shifting drowsily in Rose’s bed, making a face of mild impatience.

“I’ll show you what to do,” the war hero with drowsy eyes says, dismissively. “It’s not that hard. Now go to sleep. We’ve all been awake for thirty-six standard hours.”

* * *

In his room, he can hear nothing but the sound of operative circulatory fans. His mind reaches out for Rey’s, out of habit, and he draws it back. There’s a data book in his hand, recommended by Senator Gleck. He doesn’t doubt it’s a partisan account. But Luke had only ever spoken of his mentor as something like a saint of the Force. And the Force has no saints. Obi-Wan Kenobi can only have been a person, as Rey is just a person. As he is himself.

His life, when he leaves it, will never have a shape like Ben Kenobi’s. But, Ben Solo thinks, his life is not yet over, and there are things it’s not too late to learn.

* * *

“You’re right,” Rose says. Rey snuggles back down between Rose’s breasts, giving one a flickering little lick, and then a kiss, and almost before Rose can put her own head back down on the pillow she can feel Rey’s breath slow, as her hands move gently under Rose, a gentle but unmistakably firm hold. Like Rose belongs to her. Like Rose is precious to her.

For a moment, tears prick at the corners of her eyes. But she has been awake for a very long time. And tomorrow there will be more work; the galaxy is never saved for good by a single battle, a single vote. They will have to go on saving it again tomorrow. _It’s all going to be so difficult,_ Rose thinks, but she is not unhappy. Her eyes close, and her last waking thought is that she and Rey are breathing in the same rhythm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for reading; I appreciate it very much!


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